LinkedIn on Tuesday, April 22, 2026
As an alternative to Congressman Raskin’s efforts to affect the removal of President Trump via the 25th Amendment by proving the President is nuts – and various criticisms of that initiative – let me offer a much simpler, more likely to succeed proposal. Let’s just have Congress revoke the President’s Top Secret/SCI/SAP security clearance. SCI stands for “Sensitive Compartmented Information.” SAP refers to “Special Access Programs.”
Top Secret is our nation’s highest security clearance, without which no President can do his or her job.
For reasons I have never understood, just being elected President has traditionally conveyed automatic approval of a Top Secret security clearance. Had people running for President been required to apply and be approved for Top Secret clearance as a prerequisite for running in the general election, Trump would never have been allowed to run, not in 2016 and not in 2024, sparing our nation the hurtful mess he has caused.
The application process is rigorous to say the least, covering a wide range of the applicant’s history, relationships and mental state. Without question, Donald J. Trump, twice elected President, would never, ever have been cleared for the same position had he been hired for the job as a government employee.
Just giving Top Secret clearance to elected officials makes no sense to anyone, not to voters and not even to members of Congress who are themselves granted the same exception to security clearance scrutiny. Testing federal employees in “need to know” positions has always been standard procedure, regardless of their party affiliation. All the alternative law I am proposing does is extend that common sense procedure to the office of President and Vice President and Members of Congress.
Would such a law – including the revoking of a sitting President’s security clearance – be Constitutional? I’d like to think so, but I’m not sure. There is no language in the Constitution that mentions, requires or precludes security clearances as a condition for running for or being President. That said, does anyone – including members of the Supreme Court, regardless of their personal political leanings – believe the founding fathers would have been okay with a President who, for example, was effectively an agent of a foreign adversarial government? A convicted felon? Someone riddled with financial conflicts of interest? A pathological liar or a person who was otherwise mentally ill?
Were this new law to stand, my guess is that JD Vance would be approved. More to the point, I am certain that President Trump would not for reasons related to his background investigation, polygraph, history of criminal behavior, evaluation of his mental condition and/or financial conflicts of interest.
All Raskin and others, on both sides of the aisle, need to do is pass a law requiring formal Top Secret approval for all Presidential general election nominees going forward – and require our current President to be subject to the same approval process right now – results to made public with the bare minimum of redactions.
If the President and Republicans in the House and Senate decline support for this legislation, voters will be inclined to draw their own conclusions.
Removing a President from office is difficult to say the least. Revoking his security clearance is the simplest course of action with the best chance for bi-partisan support in Congress. The review process itself, conducted by the Department of Defense/War and FBI should be – precisely because it’s about security clearances – significantly less political than any other alternative for Presidential nullification – which is, after all, what we’re talking about.
-Les Cohen
