1968 Wharton graduate and President Donald Trump signed a directive removing security clearances held by former Penn lecturer Miles Taylor and all University affiliates on Wednesday.
The April 9 presidential memo directed federal agency leaders to “suspend any active security clearances held by Miles Taylor” and accused him of “possibly violating the Espionage Act.” The memo further instructed agency heads to suspend “any active security clearances … held by individuals at entities associated with Taylor, including the University of Pennsylvania.”
Clearances held by Penn affiliates will be reviewed to determine whether they are “consistent with the national interest,” according to the memo.
Taylor taught a Stavros Niarchos Foundation Paideia undergraduate course at Penn titled “The Future of Conservatism and the GOP” during the fall 2023 semester.
A request for comment was left with the White House. A University spokesperson declined to comment.
“Every security clearance held by someone at the University of Pennsylvania has now apparently been suspended because the current occupant of the Oval Office is angry at a public critic named Miles Taylor,” University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School professor Tobias Wolff wrote in an Instagram Threads post.
Taylor formerly served as the chief of staff in the Department of Homeland Security from 2017 to 2019. During that time, he anonymously published a whistleblower opinion piece in The New York Times alleging presidential misconduct from inside the first Trump administration.
In 2019, Taylor published a book — using the same alias of “Anonymous” — titled “A Warning” that expanded upon his initial article, which the White House characterized as “full of falsehoods and fabricated stories.”
According to the memo, Taylor’s book “[disclosed] sensitive information obtained through unauthorized methods” and “relied upon various colleagues to facilitate his unethical laundering and release of sensitive Government data to advance his false narratives.”
In response, Taylor wrote in a post on X, the site formerly known as Twitter, that he “said this would happen.”
“Dissent isn’t unlawful. It certainly isn’t treasonous,” Taylor’s post read. “America is headed down a dark path. Never has a man so inelegantly proved another man’s point.”
The memo accused Taylor of “[prioritizing] his own ambition, personal notoriety, and monetary gain over fidelity to his constitutional oath.” The memo also called for a review of Taylor’s time as a federal employee to identify instances “where his conduct appears to have been contrary to suitability standards for Federal employees … or have involved the unauthorized dissemination of classified information.”
“Taylor abandoned his sacred oath and commitment to public service by disclosing sensitive information obtained through unauthorized methods and betrayed the confidence of those with whom he served,” the memo read.
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