Maddow: Trump Campaign Official Born in Moscow Is Pushing to Get Rid of Security Clearances to Access Classified Materials

EXCERPT:

MADDOW: “If you’ve got ongoing secret communications even out of government between the Republican nominee and of the person who funded his campaign and led his ground game, right, both of whom are communicating with the Russian government, without reporting that information to the U.S. Government, and on top of that you’ve got reporting from The New York Times that they’re considering, once there is a second Trump Administration, if it happens, to stop performing background checks before giving people security clearance, meaning giving classified information to anyone. That’s supposedly at the instigation of a Trump campaign official who was born in Moscow, who was unable to get a security clearance in the first Trump term, who has had multiple arrests and is currently under indictment and has reportedly been put on top of a shortlist to be White House counsel, and he is the one who has proposed getting rid of all background checks for security clearances, which means handing out classified information on the corner. You are not going to have American allies who have been relying on us as the pinnacle intelligence agency in the world since World War II, you are not going to have continued sharing of information with a new administration that has an open line with Vladimir Putin and that is going to essentially be willing to handle classified information the way the man who was indicted for handling it the way he did it at Mar-a-Lago at the top, and with handling security clearances the way they’ve been reportedly described.”