thanks : it's oh so HN that the question got downvoted, and you alone had an answer, much appreciated.

Your question was valid and you didn’t deserve to get downvoted. That being said the person who responded to you is wrong. They did have the appropriate security clearance to access the records.

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...

> They did have the appropriate security clearance to access the records.

That EO says:

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

Where do you see that the CSO has granted access to those specific individuals? For the record, I'm not saying they are or are not on that list, we just simply don't know. If they have not been granted security clearance then there is in fact a law that makes it illegal to access federal systems and those boys are in for some trouble.

I meant to link this tweet [1] from the former Communications Director of the Vice President and active member of DOGE, Katie Miller. There’s no evidence that the members with access had “emergency” clearance and they could very well have gone through the regular process, so I was careful not to say they were granted clearance in that way. I just wanted to mention it as something people have been grouping into this and complaining about.

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

> I just wanted to mention it as something people have been grouping into this and complaining about.

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.

I’ve been through the regular process for NSA and it is indeed rigorous.

I know many friends with top secret clearance and I would say it’s reasonably rigorous but nothing crazy in my opinion.