'Joe you're fired': Trump revokes Biden's security clearance in a tit-for-tat move

US President Donald Trump announced on Friday that he is moving “immediately” to cut off his predecessor, former President Joe Biden’s security clearance. This means that Biden will be cut off from accessing classified intelligence information, unlike other presidents. Soon after assuming power, Trump expressed his displeasure with Biden’s decision to pardon his family members and some prominent people who are on Trump’s so-called “enemy list”.

“There is no need for Joe Biden to continue receiving access to classified information,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social . “Therefore, we are immediately revoking Joe Biden’s Security Clearances, and stopping his daily Intelligence Briefings,” he added. Biden’s office is yet to respond to Trump’s announcement.

Interestingly, the precedent to cut off his predecessor from intelligence briefing was set up by Biden himself. Four years earlier, he instructed US intelligence officials to halt any briefings with Trump, citing the then-former president’s “erratic behaviour” after his 2020 election loss. It is pertinent to note that presidents do not hold security clearances but have traditionally been given courtesy briefings on an “as-needed basis.”

In the past, presidents often used the provision before travelling abroad or when meeting with foreign government officials. However, it is unclear whether Biden has requested or received any such briefings since he left office last month.

Trump takes the revenge

A month after the January 6, 2021, Capitol riots, Biden told CBS News that Trump should not receive intelligence briefings, pointing to Trump’s “erratic behaviour unrelated to the insurrection.” “I just think that there is no need for him to have the intelligence briefings. What value is giving him an intelligence briefing?” Biden asked. “What impact does he have at all, other than the fact he might slip and say something?” he furthered.

In the Saturday announcement, Trump also claimed that former special counsel Robert Hur’s report on Biden’s possession of classified documents contributed to his decision to revoke clearance. In a misstatement of what Hur had actually written, Trump claimed that the former prosecutor “revealed that Biden suffers from ‘poor memory’ and “could not be trusted with sensitive information.”

Trump was referring to a section in Hur’s report in which the then-special counsel said that he would not charge Biden for retaining national defence information because he believed that Biden’s lawyers could have easily presented him as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” and in doing so would have obtained an acquittal at trial.

Trump was also charged with willful retention of national defence information, conspiracy and obstruction of justice but came back to the White House before the case even went on trial. “JOE, YOU’RE FIRED. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” Trump wrote, concluding his post.