Reports that President Donald Trump’s ever-present aide Natalie Harp refused to fill out paperwork to get a national security clearance has astonished a former West Wing official.
Appearing on MS NOW on Friday afternoon, Jim Messina, who served in the White House under President Barack Obama, first explained that he once oversaw the processing of key inner-circle employees and the treatment of Harp is baffling to him.
Speaking with host Alicia Menendez, he stated it was inconceivable that the controversial Harp was sitting in on sensitive meetings for over a year without intensive vetting.
For that, he blamed White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, who should never have allowed it, no matter what the president said.
More importantly, he demanded to know why she refused to fill out the paperwork at least twice, according to reports.
“I ran this process in the White House,” he explained. “She never would have got through the front door until she had a security clearance, much less lasted a year because, to your point, she's sitting with the president of the United States when he's meeting with world leaders, when he's talking to business people, when he's meeting with members of Congress. She's seeing everything that he's doing.”
“Like, where's the chief of staff?” he asked. “Where's the deputy chief of staff to say you're filling out this paperwork or you're not getting through the front door?”
"And why wouldn't she? Like, the question is, what is she hiding that she didn't want to fill this out for almost a year?“ he exclaimed. “Because this is —these are not hard. You know, they take some time and you’ve got to sit down with a lawyer and go through it all. But like, what was she concerned about that she didn't want to fill this out?”