A US citizen, who happens to be closely related to a “dictator” of an “authoritarian state,” was recently denied a top-security security clearance by the Pentagon over her family ties, documents show.
The applicant, described as a woman in her 30s working for a defense contractor, appealed her clearance denial with the Defense Department’s Office of Hearings and Appeals in January, but her claim was rejected by an administrative judge over concerns that she could be subject to foreign influence.
The woman’s case file doesn’t reveal her name, nor the identity of the dictator or the name of the country he rules.
The extraordinary case was first reported by CNN.
The facts suggest that the woman’s “close family member” is North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
“Applicant has a close family member who is the dictator of Country X, which is an authoritarian state,” Administrative Judge Edward Loughran wrote in his ruling.
“It is hostile to the United States, with an extremely poor human rights record,” he added. “It supports international terrorism, and it conducts cyberattacks and espionage against the United States.”
“That connection creates a potential conflict of interest and a heightened risk of foreign exploitation, inducement, manipulation, pressure, and coercion.”
North Korea, Cuba, Iran and Syria are the only four countries designated by the State Department as state sponsors of terrorism.
Of those four, North Korea and Iran are classified as nation-state cyber actors by the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
Further evidence that suggests “Country X” is North Korea is the hermit kingdom’s globally condemned human rights record and efforts at retaliating against defectors.
The woman immigrated to the United States with her immediate family in the 1990s, when she was young, according to the document.
They all became US citizens and she is now married to a US-born citizen.
The woman currently holds a secret security clearance but was seeking to elevate it to top secret.
The Washington Post reported in 2016 that Kim Jong Un’s aunt and her three children fled North Korea in 1998 and settled in the US.
“None of her immediate family members have ever returned to Country X or maintained contact with any of their family in Country X,” the document states.
“Country X considers people who leave their country to be traitors, and the country has taken retaliatory actions against some of them,” it continues. “Applicant’s parents changed their and their children’s names when they came to the United States.”
“Few people outside Applicant’s immediate family are aware that she is related to Country X’s head of state.”
Loughran noted that security clearance applicants with relatives in hostile countries already have to overcome a “very heavy burden” to prove they will not be susceptible to foreign influence.
But in this woman’s case, “it is not just the country that is hostile to the United States, Applicant’s family member is hostile to the United States,” Loughran wrote.
The judge said the woman’s case was a “difficult” one, because “there is nothing about her that makes her anything less than a perfect candidate for a security clearance except her family connections to a dictator.”
“Applicant is intelligent, honest, loyal to the United States, a model employee, and a current clearance holder with no evidence of any security problems,” he wrote, but ultimately decided that she was unable to overcome the security concerns raised by her connections to the foreign dictator.
The Pentagon did not respond to The Post’s request for comment.
