Authors National Security Counselors

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National Security Counselors
National Security Coun...
@NatlSecCnslrs
There is a now-relevant parallel here to the difference here between matters before a judge & matters before a jury. Judges are far more reluctant to strike testimony or evidence if they are the only recipients of it, with the theory being that they are really smart about ...


law stuff & will know what they can & can't consider. For instance, there is a long-held rule that a fact witness can't make legal arguments, only a lawyer. So what will happen in a motion for summary judgment, where the entire proceeding is on paper, will play out like this:

1) Defendant makes a motion for summary judgment. It includes a sworn declaration from some fact witness.

2) The declaration includes all sorts of legal arguments about why the defendant should win. Often the declaration includes arguments the brief didn't even make.

Defendants (especially DOJ-represented ones) often do this to get around the word or page-limits placed on briefs.

3) Plaintiff moves to strike the declaration for its inclusion of inadmissible legal arguments.

4) Judge denies the motion to strike, on the grounds that a ...

judge is a sophisticated consumer of evidence & can choose what to consider & what to ignore, unlike a jury.

The legal fiction behind this impeachment exception is that Senators are also smart enough to know what to listen to & what to ignore. Now, that may not be ACCURATE, ...
LAW
National Security Counselors
National Security Coun...
@NatlSecCnslrs
THREAD One of the weirder statistical consequences of the riot.

You can only be denied a security clearance (or have a current one revoked) if the allegations made against you fit within one of 13 adjudicative guidelines, numbered A-M.

Despite being ostensibly narrow, these guidelines are actually pretty broad in scope, & it can be argued that there's not really much of anything that a savvy adjudicator can't fit under their umbrella. But we're not going to talk about that today.

When the government denies or revokes a clearance, it has to issue you what is called a "Statement of Reasons" which sets forth the allegations made against you & explains which of the 13 guidelines they fit under. The most common ones tend to be B (foreign influence), C ...

(foreign preference), E (personal conduct), and F (financial issues). By far the least common one, at least in my experience, is Guidelines A: Allegiance to the United States.

That's because to fall under Guideline A, you can't just prefer another country over the US or be ...

subject to that country's influence, you have to actually do something hostile to the United States, like try to overthrow it by violence or advocate violence against it. I've never personally seen a Guideline A case & most clearance lawyers have probably only seen 1-2 max ...
FOR LATER READ
National Security Counselors
National Security Coun...
@NatlSecCnslrs
TIL that the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity & Efficiency (CIGIE) Integrity Committee, which is charged with performing audits of IG shops & investigating complaints of IG misconduct, takes the position that all of the military service IGs are beyond their reach.

They maintain that they only have oversight over the DOD IG, but that means that the only entity overseeing some of the most important OIGs in the government is ANOTHER OIG, subject to the whims of whomever happens to be leading it.

As opposed to, say, ALL THE OTHER OIGs, ...


who are answerable to an entire committee comprised of IGs from across the government, which is NOT subject to any particular member's whim.

Let's put this in some perspective. An agency OIG is charged with an awesome responsibility. They are often a whistleblower's only ...

recourse, & if they reach a decision that there's nothing to see here, there's practically nothing you can do about it. Because of this, by design they are supposed to operate independently of the agencies they oversee, so they won't be captured by the subjects of their review.

In order to carry out this important & often unappealable work, it is important that they be subject to close oversight by an objective outside body. It is also mandatory that this objective outside body be charged with investigating whistleblower claims ABOUT THE OIG.
GOVERNMENT