Trump 'pressured White House officials' to grant security clearance to daughter Ivanka

It follows reports president made similar demands on behalf of Jared Kushner

Donald Trump allegedly pressured senior White House officials to grant his daughter Ivanka Trump a security clearance, despite their recommendations against it.

It follows reports the US president applied similar pressure to obtain a security clearance for Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and Ivanka's husband, overruling concerns raised by intelligence officials.

According to CNN, Mr Trump last year pushed for John Kelly, his then chief-of-staff, and Donald McGahn, then-White House counsel, to grant the security clearances to his daughter and Mr Kushner, who are both White House advisers.

Both men refused to grant the security clearances to the couple, and ultimately Mr Trump awarded them to the pair himself, CNN reported, citing three sources.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but in an interview last month Ivanka Trump said "the president had no involvement pertaining to my clearance or my husband’s clearance".

The New York Times reported last week Mr Trump ordered Mr Kelly to grant Mr Kushner a top-secret security clearance. Senior administration officials were troubled by the decision, and Mr Kelly wrote an internal memo about the order.

It was not clear what the specific issues with their security clearances were.

On Tuesday, the House oversight committee criticised the White House for refusing to release documents related to the decision to award Mr Kushner’s security clearance.

The committee’s demands were made as part of a probe into the security clearance process of the Trump administration, which said the panel had not properly justified its request for documents.

"The White House’s argument defies the Constitutional separation of powers, decades of precedent before this Committee, and just plain common-sense," committee chairman Elijah Cummings said in a statement.

"The White House security clearance system is broken, and it needs both congressional oversight and legislative reform. I will be consulting with Members of the Committee to determine our next steps.”

Additional reporting by Reuters