The White House wouldn't comment directly on Coristine's employment, but an official who discussed the situation on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters said all DOGE staffers under Musk were working as employees of relevant agencies with security clearances.
It sounds like they might want to review how they are doing security clearance reviews (assuming they aren't just a blank check for this group) if they're letting folks like this through
Actual real life clearances take between 6 - 12 months or longer depending on backlogs.
These people have zero actual “vetting” but “presidential authority” can just say to give them clearances on the spot which is what happened here.
So they have the legal bit of paperwork but it doesn’t actually mean anything. It was just an override of the regular checks and balances and would you believe it it turns out it’s filled with problems precisely like the process is designed to stop.
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It sounds like they might want to review how they are doing security clearance reviews (assuming they aren't just a blank check for this group) if they're letting folks like this through
Actual real life clearances take between 6 - 12 months or longer depending on backlogs.
These people have zero actual “vetting” but “presidential authority” can just say to give them clearances on the spot which is what happened here.
So they have the legal bit of paperwork but it doesn’t actually mean anything. It was just an override of the regular checks and balances and would you believe it it turns out it’s filled with problems precisely like the process is designed to stop.
Even public trust (low level) requires som time to complete.
This person obviously was fasttracked and bypassed the most basic of background checks.
Does the president have the authority to grant immediate security clearances?