National securityMichael Flynn's top aide fired from NSC after security clearance is denied

A top aide to Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump’s national security advisor, was on Friday fired from his position as senior director for Africa at the National Security Council (NSC) after the CIA rejected his application for a high-level security clearance.

Robin Townley, a former Marine intelligence officer, applied for the high-level security clearance, which is required for his designated position at the NSC. Politico reports that after a thorough review, the CIA denied Townley’s application.

The CIA’s rejection of Townley’s application was approved by CIA director Mike Pompeo.

The CIA does not provide details about why it rejects security clearance applications – in this case, a equest for Sensitive Compartmented Information clearance.

Sources close to Flynn told Politico that Townley’s was rejected because he was not shy about voicing his skepticism of the U.S. intelligence community’s techniques. 

“They believe this is a hit job from inside the CIA on Flynn and the people close to him,” one source told Politico.

These sources told the reliable Politico that there are those in the U.S. intelligence community who feel threatened by Flynn and his allies, including Townley, who “believes that the CIA doesn’t run the world.”

Rep Adam Schiff (D-California), the ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, dismissed these claims as “baloney.”

Schiff said that Trump and Flynn “see treachery everywhere they go” and “if a security clearance is denied, it’s for a reason.”

Another source told Politico that inside the White House, Flynn is seen by some as waging “a jihad against the intelligence community” for what he believes was the community anti-Trump bias during the election campaign.

Flynn himself is in hot water for misleading Vice President Mike Pence about discussions he — Flynn — had with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak on 29 December. The CIA routinely eavesdrops on foreign diplomats, and Flynn was caught on tape telling the Russian ambassador not to worry about the sanctions the Obama administration had imposed on Russia that same day for its cyber-meddling in the presidential election, because Trump, after being sworn in, would lift these sanctions – as well as the sanctions imposed on Russia for annexing Crimea and invading Ukraine.

Flynn had five exchanges with the ambassador that day, and according to Schiff, speaking on CNN on Monday, at least some of the exchanges were encrypted. Flynn, a former military intelligence officer, was probably aware that the U.S. intelligence community was monitoring the Russian ambassador’s communication, so the encryption of the communication was meant to make it impossible for U.S. intelligence operatives to learn what Flynn had told the ambassador. It now appears that it was Flynn’s confidence in the robustness of that encryption that led him to mislead Pence.

Vice-president Pence asked Flynn about whether or not he had raised the issue of the sanctions in his December meeting with the Russian ambassador – and Flynn explicitly denied that he did. Pence then delivered a firm denial to a CBS News interviewer last month, when he said the conversations were “strictly coincidental” and had nothing to do with then President Barack Obama’s decision to punish Russia for meddling in the November presidential election.

Flynn is no longer denying the subject of sanctions was raised.