A Trump Aide Spent Over a Year in the West Wing Without a Security Clearance
Natalie Harp, a special assistant and executive assistant to President Trump, spent more than a year working in the White House without the security clearance that West Wing staffers are expected to obtain, according to two unnamed sources cited by MS Now and corroborated by The Guardian and The Independent (The Guardian; The Independent).
A security clearance is the government's formal sign-off that someone has been vetted and is trusted to handle classified information. To get one, White House staff typically fill out the SF-86, a lengthy form that collects details on past residences, financial history, and foreign contacts. Once submitted, it triggers a federal background investigation. Harp reportedly declined multiple times to complete that paperwork. A senior White House official familiar with the process said Harp received multiple extensions to fill it out, noting the process is lengthy and requires ample time (MS Now). The reasons for her reluctance to complete the process remain unknown.
The issue was eventually resolved only after the White House counsel's office raised it and Trump himself became involved. Harp filled out the paperwork for a federal background investigation and was belatedly granted clearance (The Guardian).
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement that Harp "has a security clearance like everyone else" and described her as "a loyal and hardworking member of President Trump's team" (The Guardian). The statement did not address the period during which Harp reportedly lacked clearance.
Harp holds the titles of special assistant to the president and executive assistant to the president. She is known around the West Wing as "the human printer" because she supplies Trump with printouts of favourable coverage, positive poll numbers from questionable sources, and messages from Trump confidants and those seeking his attention. She also reportedly sends the president adoring letters and helps him write social media posts (The Guardian; MS Now).
Her proximity to the president, both in the West Wing and at his residence, has drawn internal concern. A national security official told MS Now that Harp's near-constant access to Trump gives her exposure to sensitive information that exceeds that of nearly all other senior White House officials. That access has reportedly been the subject of unsuccessful "subtle moves" by top staff to limit her round-the-clock contact with the president (MS Now).
Harp's lack of a security clearance was one of several red flags raised about her internally by Trump's top aides since he returned to the White House in January 2025 (MS Now). The issue has now attracted congressional scrutiny. Jon Ossoff, a Democratic senator from Georgia, invoked Harp's name this week, drawing attention to her influence within the administration (The Guardian).
Richard Painter, who served as chief ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, offered context on the clearance framework. He noted that all White House staff typically undergo a background investigation, but only some require additional security clearance depending on the degree of their access to classified information (The Guardian).
The broader context here involves the tension between a president's prerogative to surround himself with trusted personal staff and the institutional safeguards — rooted in executive orders and federal regulations — designed to ensure that anyone with routine access to classified information has been vetted. The SF-86 process exists not merely as a bureaucratic hurdle but as a mechanism to identify potential vulnerabilities, including financial exposure, undisclosed foreign contacts, or other factors that could compromise someone handling or overhearing classified material. When a staffer with extraordinary physical access to the president operates outside that vetting framework for an extended period, the institutional risk calculus shifts, regardless of that individual's intentions.
This dynamic also echoes patterns observed during Trump's first term, when multiple senior officials operated with interim clearances for extended periods before being formally adjudicated. The difference in Harp's case is the reported refusal to initiate the process at all, rather than delays in adjudication. That distinction matters: an incomplete SF-86 cannot even begin the background investigation, leaving the vetting apparatus with nothing to evaluate.
Leavitt's statement, by asserting that Harp "has a security clearance like everyone else," confirms the current status without addressing the reported gap. The White House press office did not respond to a request for additional comment from Harp (MS Now).
