It’s been the biggest story in politics this week: Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA), in a speech earlier this week, referenced President Donald Trump wanting to “travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar.”
Ossoff’s comment was widely interpreted as the senator implying that the president and Natalie Harp, his White House assistant, sometimes known as the “human printer,” had something more than a purely professional relationship, and that this was a scandalously offensive thing for a U.S. senator to say.
Of course, Ossoff did not say anything like that. And the entire episode seemed to uncover a new interest in decorum among supporters of Donald Trump, a man who’s never been above sharing unconfirmed gossip about political opponents, and who on a typical day has posted something more offensive or transgressive than Ossoff’s comment, usually before 10 a.m.
She “declined?” “Declined”? You can’t just decline to get a security clearance. You either get one or you don’t have a job. So much dysfunction in this White House. When will the GOP have had enough? Why risk the country for this? https://t.co/X0unu3P0FX
— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) August 19, 2026
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Meanwhile, there has been lots of subsequent reporting about strange and odd things Harp has done during his service to the president. And MS NOW had a report Wednesday uncovering something else rather newsworthy: That Harp has “declined multiple times over more than a year to seek a routine security clearance,” which is normally required for someone working in the White House at her level.
“After concerns mounted among the White House counsel’s office and security officials, the president himself intervened, and Harp in recent months filled out the forms to launch a formal federal background investigation and received the clearance, one of the people said,” the MS NOW report said.
The security clearance issue, the report said, was “one of several red flags raised about Harp internally by Trump’s top aides since he returned to the White House in January 2025.”
That’s because, “Harp operates unusually close to the president and filters much of the information Trump sees on a daily basis, and that proximity has spurred frustration inside the West Wing.”
Photo courtesy of the Political Tribune media library.
