Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has revoked the security clearances of former White House National Security Council intelligence chief Maher Bitar, who as a congressional aide played a role in President Trump’s 2020 impeachment.
Mr. Bitar, a former Palestinian political activist who is now national security adviser to Sen. Adam B. Schiff, was among 37 officials whose access to secrets was revoked this week for what Ms. Gabbard said were abuses of power related to the Russia collusion hoax and other intelligence abuses.
Mr. Bitar was National Security Council senior director for intelligence programs from January 2021 until the end of the Biden administration. His position gave him access to the most sensitive intelligence secrets, including the identities of clandestine agents, sources of electronic spying, covert action programs and special access programs that require extraordinary secrecy.
Ms. Gabbard said in announcing the revocations on X that the 37 current and former officials “abused the public trust by politicizing and manipulating intelligence, leaking classified intelligence without authorization, and/or committing intentional egregious violations of tradecraft standards.”
“Being entrusted with a security clearance is a privilege, not a right,” Ms. Gabbard said. “Those in the Intelligence Community who betray their oath to the Constitution and put their own interests ahead of the interests of the American people have broken the sacred trust they promised to uphold.”
Others on the revocation list included former Principal Deputy DNI Stephanie O’Sullivan and Vinh X. Nguyen, a senior National Security Agency official.
Both worked for James R. Clapper, the Obama administration’s director of national intelligence. Critics say he was a key leader in promoting the now discredited anti-Trump intelligence community assessment based on false information contained in a private intelligence dossier.
Emily Horne, an NSC spokeswoman under Mr. Biden, lost her clearances.
Thomas W. West, currently on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff, also lost his clearance.
Mr. West spent four years at the State Department as a special official for Afghanistan under Mr. Biden and as an Afghanistan and Pakistan policy official for Mr. Biden when he was vice president.
A spokeswoman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence had no comment. She referred questions to Ms. Gabbard’s post on X.
Mr. Bitar did not respond to an email request for comment. A spokesman for Mr. Schiff, California Democrat, said he is a “trusted and deeply experienced national security professional who has served at the highest levels of government for almost a decade and a half and has devoted his career to protecting our nation from foreign threats and addressing our most complex foreign policy challenges.”
“The Senate is fortunate to have him continue serving our country as a public servant,” the spokesman said.
Ms. Gabbard told Fox News that the government’s false Russia collusion scandal was a “very dangerous thing” that created a manufactured intelligence assessment.
The assessment was a “politicized, weaponized piece of fake intelligence” that was used as a foundation for multiple investigations and two congressional impeachment investigations.
“Ultimately, the real crime here was against the American people because this action singularly undermined the integrity of our democratic republic,” she said.
An intelligence official said Mr. Bitar took part in a Dec. 9, 2016, National Security Council meeting with senior Obama administration officials, including CIA Director John O. Brennan and Mr. Clapper, who was director of national intelligence, about producing an intelligence community assessment on Russian collusion in the presidential election.
At the meeting, “they decided the conclusions for the [intelligence community assessment] before it was drafted,” the official said.
Some of the current and former officials “aided and abetted in this action, this seditious conspiracy that undermined our democracy, undermined our republic, and broke that sacred trust that every one of these professionals is supposed to have from the American people,” Ms. Gabbard said on Fox.
Mr. Trump directed the clearance revocations, Ms. Gabbard said.
While attending Georgetown University, Mr. Bitar was a member of Students for Justice in Palestine. Critics say the group is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said recently that the State Department is considering declaring the Muslim Brotherhood, a shadowy international Islamist political organization, a terrorist group.
Mr. Bitar spent time abroad as a student working for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, known as UNWRA, which Israel has identified as heavily infiltrated by the terrorist group Hamas, yet funded for years by American taxpayers.
“Maher Bitar finally has lost his security clearance,” former Ambassador David M. Friedman said on X. “Given his affiliations with Students for Justice in Palestine and UNRWA, as well as his hostility towards Israel, Biden never should have given him a senior position in the NSC. Why is he now employed by @SenAdamSchiff?”
Online Trump activist Laura Loomer claimed credit for Mr. Bitar’s loss of security clearances. She said she was the first to expose his continued access to secrets.
“I just got another Islamic Jihadist SCALP,” Ms. Loomer said on X. “For those of you who don’t know who Maher Bitar is, he’s one of the many Islamic jihadists in the government who I have personally been exposing FOR YEARS!!!!!”
Mr. Bitar has no military or intelligence experience and, as general counsel to Mr. Schiff when he was chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, took part in the impeachment proceedings against Mr. Trump for abuse of power and obstructing Congress related to Ukraine.
The Senate acquitted Mr. Trump of the charges in January 2020.
Before joining the House oversight panel, Mr. Bitar was NSC director for Israeli and Palestinian affairs under President Obama and, from 2015 to 2017, was a deputy to Ambassador Samantha Power.
Congressional investigators revealed that Ms. Power made an unusual number of requests, estimated to be about 300, to unmask the identities of sources in sensitive intelligence reports at the end of the Obama administration.
Intelligence made public under the second Trump administration reveals a concerted effort by intelligence officials to falsely discredit Mr. Trump.
Mr. Schiff, as House intelligence committee chair, was the leading proponent of the unverified and later debunked Russian dossier that included salacious allegations against Mr. Trump.
No real evidence of such collusion was ever uncovered.
A former Democratic congressional aide told the FBI that Mr. Schiff approved leaking classified information in a bid to discredit Mr. Trump, documents released this month showed.
The House voted in 2023 to censor Mr. Schiff for lying in leading investigations of Mr. Trump.
