The White House faced fresh questions on Thursday over whether Donald Trump’s closest aide, Natalie Harp, had access to US government secrets without security clearance. Harp, who is executive assistant to the US president, worked at the White House for a year without the routine clearance, the MS Now network reported on Thursday. She refused to file the relevant forms for unknown reasons, according to two unnamed sources cited by MS Now.
It was only when the White House counsel’s office raised the issue, and when Trump himself became involved, that Harp filled out the paperwork for a federal background investigation and was belatedly granted clearance, according to the report. Norm Eisen, a former White House ethics tsar, said: “It is shocking that an aide who has potential exposure to the nation’s most sensitive secrets reportedly went without a security clearance for so long. Treating access to confidences as a casual job perk is an outrageous way to handle our national security.” Eisen, co-founder of Democracy Defenders Action, a non-partisan group dedicated to free and fair elections, added: “This is the continued incompetence of an administration willing to set aside our country’s interests, ignore established protocol, and make the White House vulnerable to intelligence risks in order to appease Trump.
The American people deserve answers.” Harp’s influence has come under close scrutiny this week after her name was invoked by Jon Ossoff, a Democratic US senator for Georgia. Harp has reportedly sent the US president adoring letters, helps him write social media posts, and has been dubbed “the human printer” because she supplies him with printouts of favourable coverage. The MS Now report about her prolonged lack of security clearance drew criticism of the arrangement among former White House officials across the political spectrum.
In response, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said in a statement: “Natalie Harp has a security clearance like everyone else, and she is a loyal and hardworking member of President Trump’s team.” David Axelrod, who was chief strategist and senior adviser to Barack Obama, posted on X: “If this story is true, and the person closest to the @POTUS and his thinking on a daily basis has no security clearance and refuses to submit to the process of getting it, it’s a deadly serious issue.” Richard Painter, a former chief ethics lawyer for George W Bush, noted that all White House staff usually undergo a background investigation, but only some require additional security clearance, depending on their access to classified information. Natalie’s all-consuming fanatical devotion and willingness to be at Trump’s side whenever he needs plays into his pathological need for attention.” Harp, 35, first came to national attention as a cancer survivor and enthusiastic Trump supporter who spoke at the 2020 Republican national convention in Washington. She joined the far-right One America News Network in 2020 and went to work for Trump two years later as he plotted his political resurrection.
She has frequently been at his side ever since. The CNN network reported that in 2023, when Trump was due to appear in court in New York, Harp discovered there was no seat for her in his motorcade so she jumped into the trunk of an SUV, insisting that he had personally asked her to attend. And last month, when Trump secretly switched aircraft in Turkey after an alleged Iranian assassination threat, Harp was among a small group who accompanied him on a military aircraft while other officials and journalists remained onboard a decoy Air Force One.
This week Ossoff attacked Trump in a campaign speech, accusing him of being more interested in building his White House ballroom and travelling with “Natalie” than carrying out the duties of president. The remark prompted an extraordinary backlash from the White House and sent social media into overdrive, with users speculating about the nature of Harp’s relationship with Trump. Her loyalty to the president has also been documented in the book Regime Change, published this year by
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