Former officials say congressional Republicans have little odds of revoking Hillary Clinton's security clearance. | AP Photo GOP faces tough odds to revoke Clinton’s clearance Republicans are pressuring the Obama administration to deny Clinton access to traditional campaign intelligence briefings.

The GOP’s newly launched quest to deny Hillary Clinton access to traditional presidential campaign security briefings is unlikely to succeed, according to former intelligence officials and classification policy experts.

On Thursday, Republican lawmakers introduced a bill and fired off several letters to the Obama administration in an attempt to revoke the clearances of Clinton and several of her top aides, and bar them from the classified security briefings that major party presidential nominees have received for decades.


The push comes days after FBI Director James Comey said he would not recommend bringing charges against Clinton for her mishandling of classified information on private servers used during her time as secretary of State.

Republicans argue that congressional action is necessary in the face of the FBI’s inaction.

“When individuals mishandle our country’s most sensitive information, they jeopardize national security and shouldn’t be trusted with such an important responsibility,” said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, who is co-sponsoring the legislation with Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.).

But former officials who handled classified material, along with other policy experts cautioned that Capitol Hill has minimal capacity to force the administration's hand on the matter.

Congress has “limited power” to determine who gets and retains a security clearance, and thus access to secret information, said Steven Aftergood, an expert on classification policy and director of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy.

Historically, he added, both the security clearance process and classification standards derive from the president, who sets the classification guidelines and has final say in any security clearance decision.

These experts also said it would be unprecedented — and exceedingly difficult — to stop an outgoing administration from choosing to offer briefings to one or both presidential candidates. Even revoking Clinton’s security clearance wouldn’t necessarily prohibit the intelligence community from briefing her on classified information during the campaign.

“It’s very difficult for someone to make the case that one presidential nominee from one party should have access to information that the other does not,” said John Cohen, who worked in intelligence posts under both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

The long-shot odds have not stopped congressional Republicans from trying.

House Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday sent Director of National Intelligence James Clapper a letter asking for Clinton’s clearance to be revoked and urging him to deny Clinton the courtesy intelligence briefings that have been offered to presidential nominees since 1952.

“There is no legal requirement for you to provide Secretary Clinton with classified information, and it would send the wrong signal to all those charged with safeguarding our nation’s secrets if you choose to provide her access to this information despite the FBI’s findings,” Ryan wrote.

On the Senate side, 10 Republicans signed on to another letter sent to Secretary of State John Kerry urging him to reject clearances for Clinton and her top aides, including Huma Abedin, Cheryl Mills and Jake Sullivan.

Cornyn and Gardner also introduced a bill that would bar officials who have mishandled classified information from holding a security clearance.

“Secretary Clinton recklessly accessed classified information on an insecure system — establishing a vulnerable and highly desirable target for foreign hackers,” Gardner said in a statement. “If the FBI won’t recommend action based on its findings, Congress will. At the very least, Secretary Clinton should not have access to classified information and our bill makes sure of it.”

The push has quickly become central Republican talking point, now that criminal charges seem exceedingly unlikely for Clinton or her closest staffers.

House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) sparred with Comey on the subject Thursday during a nearly five-hour hearing.

“The FBI does background checks,” he said. “If Hillary Clinton applied for the job at the FBI, would the FBI give Hillary Clinton a security clearance?”

“I don't want to answer a hypothetical,” Comey replied, while conceding that the private email use “would be a very important consideration” in making such a decision.

But experts warn that Republicans can’t ultimately dictate to the administration who receives access to classified information.

“Congress has a voice, but they don’t run it and they don’t control it,” Aftergood said of the security clearance process.

On the other hand, he added: “They do fund it, they can express intent, they can legislate around the edges, they could say ‘We don’t control the security system but we forbid the [Office of the Director of National Intelligence] to use any appropriated funds to brief Hillary Clinton.’ They could do that; that would be crazy, but it would be legally sound.”

Greg Thielmann — a former State Department foreign service under both Republican and Democratic administrations and an ex-aide to the Senate Intelligence Committee — said that, “while I do have some sympathy for the argument that there shouldn’t be a double-standard in terms of what rules should apply to whom, it does seem that what is being suggested … is way over the top.”

Even if Republicans succeeded in revoking Clinton’s security clearance, it wouldn’t necessarily block her from getting the “tour of the horizon” intelligence briefings customarily offered to nominees since the Truman administration, said David Priess, who authored "The President’s Book of Secrets,” which covers the history of presidential intelligence briefings.

The White House — which makes the ultimate determination on who gets briefings — has already directed Clapper’s office to brief both candidates. Priess said it is unlikely that Clapper would overturn Obama’s directive and brief only one of the candidates, barring a “cataclysmic” development.

While the pre-Election Day sessions do contain classified information — a fact that is made expressly clear to the contenders — they don’t contain the “family jewels,” such as U.S. covert actions around the globe or the president’s full daily intelligence briefing, Priess explained.

Clinton isn’t the only 2016 contender that lawmakers and experts have voiced concerns about receiving state secrets, either.

Since sewing up the GOP nomination, observers have been worried that Donald Trump, known for his stream-of-consciousness speaking style, will accidentally let slip classified details on the campaign trail.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the House Intelligence Committee’s top Democrat, suggested as much when he called the GOP’s push to only brief Trump “as predictable as it is absurd.”

“These briefings are given because it serves the national interest to do so, and because one of the candidates will be the next President of the United States," said Schiff, an early Clinton supporter, in a statement. “With Trump, the question isn't whether the briefings should occur, but whether they would do any good."

However, the situation is more opaque when it comes to Clinton’s key aides, all of whom communicated regularly with Clinton through her personal email account. Comey sharply criticized Clinton’s entire team during his Tuesday briefing, and did not rule out the possibility that Clinton’s co-workers could face penalties.

“There is still the potential that administrative steps could be taken that could preclude key members of her staff from being able to access classified information in the future,” either during the campaign or in a potential Clinton administration, explained Cohen.

Any such punishment from the administration would complicate the ability of people such as Abedin, Mills and Sullivan to sit in on classified campaign briefings, and potentially to hold White House positions, Cohen said.

“As many people have opined," he said, "this issue isn’t necessarily over."