genuine question, not sarcastic: what specifically is blatantly illegal, violating what law?

There’s a long, long list of people who thought “Trump owes me” would be a guarantee and got a rude awakening.

they are doing what he is (in)directly ordering - they ain't going to jail following the orders of the POTUS :)

Some people are skeptical on the legitimacy of what some are calling “emergency” security clearances given by executive order[1] but there’s no evidence this is not within the bounds of the president’s power. An expedited clearance could have been granted in 48 hours but presumably the backlog has already lasted longer than that and would hamper plans for the first month in office.

[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/memo...

That EO says:

    The White House Counsel to provide the White House Security Office and Acting Chief Security Officer with a list of personnel

[1] https://x.com/katierosemiller/status/1886110659097637367

For sure. Fair point.

> they could very well have gone through the regular process

My understanding is that the "regular process" is pretty rigorous (background checks, calls to family members, etc). So, I would take a "former comms dir"'s tweet with a grain of salt.