The title sums up the thread premise. Supposing Marion Barry and his drug conviction hit the jackpot and gets elected to the oval office in 2016. Or someone with public ties to Al-Qaeda and the Elbonian Marxist Militia winds up taking the oath.
Or anyone else that there’s no way in hell they’d pass the background check to get their greasy mitts near the football.
Is there an out for the joint chiefs and the various intelligence agencies?
I think if you’re president, you get the security clearance no matter what anybody thinks. If something really bizarre happened I think someone would end up leaking the information to the public.
I think I’d rather take my chances with Marion Barry than a military junta that considers elections to be merely suggestions. I mean, did you give even fifteen seconds’ consideration to the implication of the joint chiefs essentially stating they’re not going to accept the outcome of the US Presidential election?
Who do you think the chiefs of staff work for? What about the intelligence agencies? Who do they report to?
A couple of previous threads from GQ that are related to the question:
Are there any government activities so secret that even the president doesn’t know about them? (May 2011)
Does the President still operate on Need To Know? (August 2011)
So, legally speaking, I don’t think the concept of “security clearance” applies to the POTUS. You might say the President grants security clearances (or at least they are granted by other people using his delegated authority over the executive branch). The remedies for a President who can’t be trusted with the nation’s secrets–crack addict, mind-controlled enemy agent, Sith lord, or whatever–are political, not legal: Don’t elect such a person in the first place; if such a person is elected (maybe The People didn’t know the candidate is a mind-controlled enemy agent), then the House of Representatives can impeach the President and the Senate can remove him from office (an essentially political, not legal, process). The Vice President and Cabinet can also invoke the 25th Amendment to declare the Prez unable to discharge the powers of the Presidency, allowing the Veep to take over as Acting President…of course, the Vice President and Cabinet officials were selected by the President (as his running mate in the case of the Veep; and nominated for cabinet office in the case of cabinet secretaries, though the cabinet officers are at least confirmed by the Senate). So they may all also be crack addicts/mind-controlled enemy agents/Sith apprentices.
From the CIA : all members of congress and senators get intelligence by virtue of being elected and don’t need clearances.
NM
Another way of looking at it: to get a security clearance, you have to be checked out and approved by somebody in authority.
The president has already been approved-- by millions people, on election day. They are the ultimate authority, right?
:eek:
Nah, too easy.
Legal out? Unlikely. A coup is always possible though, I guess.
By the time most people start considering a run for POTUS, they’ve usually been in a few positions of authority – dog catcher, councilman, tax collector, senator, etcetera – and typically one or more roles in which they represented the government. I’d think if candidate Carlson was some kind of a security risk, somebody would have found out about it way back when he was applying for the Marshal’s Cadet position or at some point along his career path. It’s something the opposition’s team would emphasize in their political ads against him, so he wouldn’t have a chance of getting so close to the Oval Office.
–G!
Right, Mr. Schwarzenegger?
Specifically why I chose Marion Barry as the example. Re-elected as mayor of DC in '94 after being convicted and having a jail term for drug use.
Demonstrating that a known history of criminally stupid conduct isn’t necessarily an obstacle to being elected.
You presume way too much about candidates and the electorate.
Yep, exactly this.
Security clearances are not constitutional. The process for choosing a president is constitutional. So, an election trumps security clearances.
Do you really just think of the presidency as a military job? I know I don’t elect the president with any thought towards his role as head of the armed forces. Honestly, I don’t get why the roles are so connected.
Because the President is Commander-in-Chief of the US armed forces. And the Presidency is explicitly and deliberately not a military job - no active member of the armed forces can be President. The roles are connected in order to subordinate the military to the civilian government.
Let’s not drag the Clintons into this.
Regards,
Shodan