Engel seeks answers about white supremacists in state department

risk of granting clearances to individuals espousing white supremacy and other extremist ideologies

[White Supremacy]
Rep. Engel: “Individuals who laud such discrimination have no business working in the Department, let alone holding security clearances necessary to perform sensitive national security-related tasks on behalf of the American people.”
Photo: SPLC

Alleged white supremacist Matthew Gebert (above) was known to have state department security clearance.

Representative Eliot L. Engel, Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, this week called upon the State Department to provide clarity on whether the Department has sufficient background check procedures to screen out individuals with ties to white supremacist and other hate groups.

In a letter to Acting Assistant Secretary Todd Brown of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, Chairman Engel reiterated his longstanding concern over earlier apparent failures and weaknesses in the Department’s vetting process that left the Department at risk of granting clearances to individuals espousing white supremacy and other extremist ideologies that contravene the Department’s foreign policy values.

The letter references state State Department official Matthew Q. Gebert–who has been called a white nationalist by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

“I have welcomed this engagement but remain concerned about a lack of clarity on several important aspects of DS’ security clearance investigation process. These concerns include not just whether discrimination is playing a role in DS’ granting of clearances, but also whether DS is sufficiently scrutinizing individuals who may advocate discrimination during the clearance process,” wrote Chairman Engel. “Individuals who laud such discrimination have no business working in the Department, let alone holding security clearances necessary to perform sensitive national security-related tasks on behalf of the American people.”

Full text of the letter follows and can be found here.

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