. >> why can't dan scavino, donald trump's social media manager, get a security clearance. to caddie for donald trump. what has he done that is making him difficult, who puts out the tweets, to get a security clearance from the fbi. >> i'm not an expert on dan scavino, but your question does speak to a much larger issue. >> a lower level person. jared kushner, you understand that. why can't a lower level person like the social media manager get a security clearance. >> a lower level person had to quit this week, this past week because he smoked marijuana in 2013 and would not pass a back ynd check. that was recently reported. it could be that, or it could be more substantial. >> although interestingly, you can still pass a security test if you have smoked marijuana in 2013. more likely, he smoked marijuana and lied about it to the investigative agencies, and these guys lie. you know, trump is a congenital liar. he can't help himself. guess what. he hires a lot of people who lie every day. and when you lie to the fbi, you are not going to get a security clearance, and you're

dan scavino, the president's director of social media. christopher when dell, assistant to the president. a total of 34 people who started their government service on january 20, 2017, the first day of the trump presidency, were still on interim clearances in mid november. among them are white house counsel don mcgahn. white house brace secretary sarah huckabee sanders. white house spokesman raj shah, who had only interim clearances to access the most sensitive government information, according to the documents. white house officials said wednesday they would not comment as is their policy on the nature of security clearances. the concern about white house security clearances has escalated in recent days. the fallout from the rob porter scandal. a lot of people have been asking how he was able to handle the most sensitive and classified documents in our government to reach the president's desk for over a year without a permanent security clearance. with us to talk about all of this, one of the authors of that nbc news report, our national

operating and a completely are interim clearance including jared kushner, it includes ivan can trump, dan scavino who was involved in a lot of meetings taking pictures. another group of officials hosh dollars have top secret clearance but were waiting for the highest level clearance so-called sci clearance in order to view the same and most side effect classified documents that the president would encounter. so one of the explanations again has had to do with whether there was a lag, a backlog of -- but what's important to note, there were 12 officials who starred after ivan can trump officially went onto the white house payroll who managed to get the highest level of clearance while these other officials are still waiting for theirs. >> there are a bunch of people started at the same time, some managed to get permanent clearance. there's a bunk who didn't. we don't know the answer as to why. >> that's right. there are any number of reasons why is somebody in the course of an investigation would have their clearance held up. our own ken dilanian was reporting today that there's an additional in a

house press secretary, don mcgahn, white house counsel, and the man who sometimes tweets as trump dan scavino. >> 130? >> 130. >> that tells me they didn't go and hire anyone from the bush administration who had already been cleared. the interim security cloerns process is supposed to be interim. it's supposed to be there for 90 to 180 days at a maximum. then you get your permanent clearan clearance. these aren't regular clearances. this is top secret, special compartmented information, plus special access program. >> right. >> two to three levels above top secret. once they got -- i understand there's like 15 to 20 people who were in a category of unclearable. i had never heard the term unclearable because those people would have been terminated or disappeared long before their clearance would have been adjudicated. there are people there who have felony convictions, as i understand it. the rest of the staff, there's something wrong. they're choosing them for loyalty. >> you mean like they beat their ex-wives? >> or something like that. even that, you get -- there's a process for that. it's

dan scavino. and director of initiatives. the white house wouldn't comment.people in positions that directly report to the president were working with some form of interim security clearance a year after the president trump presidential transition began. that's about a quarter of all political and at least 85 political appointees in the white house. vice president's office and national security counsel were working without permanent security clearances. at the national security council, 42% of those listed in the documents had only interim security clearances as of november. joining us now, msnbc ari, he has a piece in the "new york times" about the mueller probe. also, former undersecretary of state for diplomacy and distinguished fellow at the digital research lab. rick stengel. we'll explain what that lab does in just a moment and how it relates to russia's interference in our elections. but joe, i think one of the problems we're seeing with these interim security clearances is that, i mean, we personally have seen people -- and have named some who are in