Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

7. Intelligence Community · Minor

Enforce the 48-hour security clearance reciprocity guidance across the IC

Not started

207 7. Intelligence Community

“As executive agent for security clearances, the DNI must require results from agencies that resist implementation, enforce the 48-hour reciprocity guidance, and target human resources operations that fail to attract and expediently onboard qualified personnel.”

What has happened

  1. Not started

    Moved nearby, not delivered. The instrument the Quote asks for — a Security Executive Agent Directive or ODNI memorandum enforcing 48-hour clearance reciprocity across the IC — does not exist on ODNI's published record. ODNI's own RSS feed, read in full on 2026-09-03 (536 items, 2005 to 2026-08-20, the complete public inventory of releases, reports, remarks and Intelligence Community Directives), carries no SEAD and no ICD on reciprocity; its only clearance-adjacent items are a statutory report, "Personnel Vetting Trust Determinations" (2026-06-08), responding to section 7703(b) of the Intelligence Authorization Act for FY2024, and the ODNI 2.0 fact sheet cited here, which gives the National Counterintelligence and Security Center a forward mission of "security clearance reform, deterring counterintelligence threats, and oversee investigations and BDA of unauthorized leaks of classified information". That is the ask's subject area restated as an office's remit, not enforcement of the 48-hour rule against resisting agencies. The one occurrence of "reciprocity" in ODNI's in-window output is a 2026-03-26 cybersecurity release about "policies and standards that promote reciprocity across the IC and Department of War systems — cutting redundant authorization timelines", which is systems accreditation, not clearances. How far this negative reaches: ODNI's published record and the Federal Register; a SEAD need not be published. The earlier finding stands and is restated: no record of the DNI enforcing the 48-hour security clearance reciprocity guidance. Federal Register full-text search for "clearance reciprocity" since 2025-01-20 returns 0 documents and "Trusted Workforce" returns seven, all OPM suitability rulemakings and information-collection notices that do not touch IC reciprocity. What Congress did enact, in section 6310 of the Intelligence Authorization Act for FY2026, is a pair of studies: the DNI must evaluate whether recently separated officers could keep eligibility, and must assess continuous vetting of inactive clearances and report findings in 120 days. Studies, not enforcement.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

  • The enforcement instrument would be a Security Executive Agent Directive or an ODNI memorandum. dni.gov and odni.gov can be read, despite an earlier note that they refused to open: the leadership page (https://www.dni.gov/index.php/who-we-are/leadership, which redirects to https://www.odni.gov/leadership/) opens, and ODNI’s RSS feed is the site’s complete public inventory. Only the site search, which refused every query, and the sitemap are shut. Checked again 2026-09-03.
  • OPM’s in-window suitability work (proposed rule 2025-06-03, final rule 2026-06-30, “Suitability Action Appeals” 2026-02-06 and 2026-08-03) is federal suitability and fitness under 5 CFR 731, not the IC’s clearance reciprocity regime, and IC employees are expressly excluded from the Civil Service Reform Act framework those rules sit in (see the Fourth Circuit’s footnote 2 in John Doe 1 v. ODNI, No. 25-1527). Not counted.
  • This ask is also covered by a single negative search of Executive Order 12333 and the DNI’s authorities.
Action
other
Object
48-hour security clearance reciprocity guidance (Trusted Workforce 2.0)
ID
534