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Not for the current administration, apparently.

"...Ms. Newbold also asserted that the Trump administration had made changes to security protocols that made it easier for individuals to get clearances. The changes included stopping credit checks on applicants to work in the White House, which she said helps identify if employees of the president could be susceptible to blackmail."[0]

[0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/01/us/politics/trump-securit...

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Not sure why the parent comment is being downvoted —- the allegations against the current administration for bypassing the financial and credit checks for high-level security clearances are very relevant to the discussion.

The whistleblower, an 18-year civil servant, allegedly received retribution from superiors for speaking out against the abuse, which puts our national security at risk by inviting foreign powers to leverage government officials.

These are exceptions made for a very small hand-selected group of Trump's cronies working in the White House. It doesn't really have much to do with the procedures in place for normal clearances, and they didn't change the regulations, they just granted e.g. his kids a waiver. I don't approve of it, but don't extrapolate it to a policy change.

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