FINALLY: Hillary Clinton No Longer Has Her Security Clearance

If there was any justice in the world, Hillary Clinton would have had her security clearance revoked in 2016, when it was revealed that she played loose and fast with classified information by storing it on a homebrew server in her Chappaqua basement. As we know, of course, she not only retained her clearance at that time but was mystifyingly cleared of breaking the exact statutes that govern the use and dissemination of classified material.

In any event, justice delayed is still justice. As the State Department confirmed in a letter to Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley this week, Clinton’s security clearance has at last been revoked. In fact, Clinton herself requested that the clearance be stripped – a request the State Department fulfilled on August 30, only a few days after President Trump revoked former CIA Director John Brennan’s access to sensitive materials. Roughly a month later, five of Clinton’s State Department aides, including lawyer Cheryl Mills, also had their security clearances revoked by the agency.

Why did Clinton request the termination of her security clearance? To us, it seems obvious that she could see it coming down the line and she wanted to get out in front of it. Trump was determined at the end of summer to strip former Obama administration officials of their clearances – especially those who were using this status to go on television and complain about his presidency. Brennan was out there carelessly throwing around the word “treason,” and pretending that, through his high-level security access, he had more information about the president’s doings than the average pundit. This was the misconception that Trump wanted to put an end to, so it’s not surprising that Hillary would want to be proactive and save herself the humiliation.

Of course, that’s not the story Mrs. Clinton wants us to hear.

Instead, she’s insisting that she made the request as an act of “solidarity” with Brennan in the wake of an op-ed written by Navy SEAL Admiral William McRaven. The McRaven op-ed, published in August, was sharply critical of the Trump administration’s decision to strip Brennan of his clearance.

“Secretary Clinton has great respect for Admiral McRaven,” tweeted her spokesperson, Nick Merrill. “She read this message & decided to take the step of voluntarily withdrawing her security clearance, which she maintained after leaving her post as Secretary of State to write her book, customary for former Secretaries.”

Well, either way. If she couldn’t find a way to spin it so she came out smelling like a rose, she wouldn’t be a Clinton. The important thing is that she’s out of the loop, which singlehandedly makes our country, and our classified information, that much more secure.