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Comment by 1oooqooq | Hacker News Reader

technically, a clearance and background check have never been done on political appointees. the fbi openly says so. at least this is not new... the new thing is the low level of petty criminals being apointed.

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Political appointees don’t get root, and they still had to get clearance for sensitive materials (as it’s legally required for the people securing a SCIF not to allow anyone who doesn’t have clearance in the door). Part of why the new administration is trying to bull through the process is that his first term had many delays due to appointees failing those checks.

How do you know who has a clearance? Is there a database they check? Or is it word of mouth from their boss?

Yes, there’s a database and people who audit access, ensure that permissions are periodically reviewed (i.e. just because you needed access 5 years ago doesn’t mean your current duties still require the same access), and other events can trigger reviews (e.g. a large amount of personal debt could make someone a greater risk).

Which department/agency maintains the database of who-has-which-clearance?

The Office of Personnel Management runs a lot of the standardized stuff, including the system which people use to submit the standard forms, but agencies have their own offices and variations:

https://ourpublicservice.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/back...

they get root if the job requires.

appointees are interviewed, not vetted by the fbi like federal employs. the dowvote brigade could read the article since im rentioning a literal quote from there.

Political appointees typically work on policy, they’re not shelling into servers and moving data around. This is especially true of the “special government employee” category Musk is using where it’s short-term (not more than 130 days in a 365 day period) and intended for consulting type expert advice rather than bypassing the normal hiring rules.

> the dowvote brigade could read the article since im rentioning a literal quote from there.

Alternately, consider that they’re recognizing that the scope of this situation is different both in terms of the level of access and nature of the work and unwillingness to follow policies. For example, when they tried to barge into the SCIF at USAID the staff who tried to stop them were under a legal obligation to do so - they’re charged with requiring everyone who enters to have a clearance. Historically, people got those and so it was never codified into law that they had to. Similarly, if people were requesting the access needed to perform their official task and using agency accounts and equipment to do so, you didn’t need an “auditor” to get approved at the level needed to be a system administrator. This is turning into a big scandal not just because it’s so highly politicized but also because bulling through so many process protections dramatically increases the potential risk.

As a simple example, reports have these guys getting admin access and using personal email accounts and equipment. Consider what happens if someone emails them a PDF saying it has evidence of fraud and it has a nasty payload. If they have unnecessary levels of access or have demanded that restrictions be removed, the fallout for that will be much worse than it would be if they were following the rules. Every federal agency has people employed specifically to prevent all of those layers of failure from happening.

Background checks have always been done on political appointees. They aren't a requirement for getting the position but historically they've been done prior to appointment so that leadership knows if they are a security risk.

And for appointees that require congressional confirmation the checks have been giving to congress prior to hearings for the same reason.

They weren't required but they very much have been done for political appointees in every admin in recent history except this one.

exept they haven't

https://www.vox.com/trump-administration/388627/fbi-backgrou...

That article you linked says exactly what I said. They aren't required but they are customary.

> technically, a clearance and background check have never been done on political appointees. the fbi openly says so.

"Trump team agrees to DoJ background checks for nominees"

* https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/03/trump-team-b...

"FBI background checks of presidential nominees, explained":

* https://www.npr.org/2025/01/15/nx-s1-5260953/fbi-background-...

This has been the case since Eisenhower in 1953:

* https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/execu...

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