According to a public document from the U.S. Department of Defense’s Office of Hearings and Appeals, an anonymous government official was denied a top-secret security clearance due to being a “close relative” of a certain country’s dictator.
The government employee had previously held a lower-level security clearance but was rejected by a judge when applying for a top-secret security clearance.
Administrative law judge Edward Loughran stated that the applicant was associated with “an extremely odious and dangerous individual, a dictator from a country hostile to the United States.”
The unnamed female applicant, described as being in her early thirties, is married to a native-born American citizen and has worked for a U.S. defense contractor for several years.
In the 1990s, she and her family emigrated to the United States when she was very young, becoming American citizens, with no contact with family members still residing in their home country (referred to as “Country X” in the document).
The judge noted that Country X “supports international terrorism, conducts cyberattacks, and engages in espionage against the United States.”
The applicant was born in Country X, and a close relative (cousin, aunt, uncle, niece, or nephew) of hers is the dictator of Country X. Her parents and children, including herself, immigrated to the U.S. when they were young in the 1990s and became American citizens.
Upon arriving in the U.S., the family changed their names, but the applicant’s mother “still fears retaliation.”
Loughran mentioned that it was a difficult decision to make because the applicant is intelligent, honest, loyal to the U.S., a model employee with a current security clearance, and no evidence suggests any security concerns.
In October 2023, Loughran received the woman’s application for a top-secret security clearance, ultimately issuing a denial in January 2024.
“She’s a good person, but unfortunately associated with an extremely bad and dangerous individual, a dictator from a country hostile to the United States,” Loughran wrote in his ruling.
Loughran rejected the woman’s eligibility for a top-secret clearance, citing that her relationship with the dictator “creates potential conflicts of interest and increases the risk of foreign exploitation, inducement, manipulation, pressure, and coercion.”
Military sociologist Marek Posard of the RAND Corporation told CNN that records indicate the woman may be from North Korea.
He suggested she could be Kim Jong Un’s cousin. As only four countries are listed by the U.S. as state sponsors of terrorism, with two involved in cyberattacks against the U.S., the particularly retaliatory one is North Korea.
The four countries currently designated by the U.S. as state sponsors of terrorism are Cuba, North Korea, Iran, and Syria.
A 2016 report by The Washington Post stated that Kim Jong Un’s aunt and her three children immigrated to the U.S. in 1998.
Posard indicated that the denial may not be “directly related to this young woman” but rather due to the level of risk the U.S. is willing to accept by granting her approval.
“This is not her fault,” Posard said, “but if North Korea were to try to exploit that… that’s something we have to anticipate.”