President Donald Trump said on Friday that he is revoking former president Joe Biden’s access to government secrets and ending the daily intelligence briefings he has been receiving in payback for Mr Biden doing the same to him in 2021.
Mr Trump announced his decision in a post on his social media platform shortly after he arrived at his Mar-a-Lago home and private club in Palm Beach for the weekend.
“There is no need for Joe Biden to continue receiving access to classified information. Therefore, we are immediately revoking Joe Biden’s Security Clearances, and stopping his daily Intelligence Briefings,” Mr Trump wrote.
“He set this precedent in 2021, when he instructed the Intelligence Community (IC) to stop the 45th President of the United States (ME!) from accessing details on National Security, a courtesy provided to former Presidents.”
The move is the latest in a vengeance tour of Washington that Mr Trump promised during his campaign.
He has previously revoked security clearances from more than four dozen former intelligence officials who signed a 2020 letter saying that the Hunter Biden laptop saga bore the hallmarks of a “Russian information operation”.
He has also revoked security details assigned to protect former government officials who have criticised him, including his own former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, who faces threats from Iran, and former infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci.
Mr Biden did not immediately comment on the move.
Mr Biden ended Mr Trump’s intelligence briefings after Mr Trump helped spur efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and incited the January 6 2021 attack on the Capitol. At the time, Mr Biden said Mr Trump’s “erratic” behaviour should prevent him from getting the intel briefings.
Asked in an interview with CBS News what he feared if Mr Trump continued to receive the briefings, Mr Biden said he did not want to “speculate out loud” but made clear he did not want Mr Trump to continue having access to such information.
“I just think that there is no need for him to have the intelligence briefings,” Mr Biden said.
“What value is giving him an intelligence briefing? What impact does he have at all, other than the fact he might slip and say something?”
in 2022, federal agents searched Mr Trump’s Florida home and seized boxes of classified records. He was indicted on dozens of felony counts accusing him of illegally hoarding classified records and obstructing FBI efforts to get them back.
He pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing. A judge dismissed the charges, ruling the special counsel who brought them was illegally appointed, and the Justice Department gave up appeals after Mr Trump was elected in November.
In a related matter, Mr Trump dismissed Colleen Shogan as the archivist of the United States, White House aide Sergio Gor posted on X on Friday night.
Mr Trump had said in early January that he would replace the head of the National Archives and Records Administration.
The government agency drew his anger after it informed the Justice Department about issues with Mr Trump’s handling of classified documents. Ms Shogan, the first woman in the post, was not the archivist of the United States at the time the issue emerged.
In his post on Mr Biden, Mr Trump cited the special counsel report last year into his handling of classified documents, saying: “The Hur Report revealed that Biden suffers from ‘poor memory’ and, even in his ‘prime,’ could not be trusted with sensitive information.”
He ended his post by saying: “I will always protect our National Security — JOE, YOU’RE FIRED. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Special counsel Robert Hur investigated Mr Biden’s handling of classified information and found that criminal charges were not warranted but delivered a bitingly critical assessment of his handling of sensitive government records.
The report described Mr Biden’s memory as “hazy,” “fuzzy,” “faulty,” “poor” and having “significant limitations”. It said Mr Biden could not recall defining milestones in his own life such as when his son Beau died or when he served as vice president.
Mr Trump has the right to end the briefings for Mr Biden because it is a sitting president’s decision on whether a past president should continue to have access to classified information.
