By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Trump administration said Tuesday it is removing five senior officials on suspicion of targeting former president Joe Biden’s political opponents with a now-abolished aviation security watchlist.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said she was referring the issue to the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and to Congress for further investigation.
The Transportation Security Administration’s “Quiet Skies” program, scrapped in June, had required enhanced screening for some air passengers deemed to be a higher security risk.
Noem, whose department includes the TSA, said the program cost $200 million annually and had been used to “target political opponents and benefit political allies.”
Her department said that, under Biden, the program watchlisted and sometimes denied boarding to passengers who resisted COVID-era mask mandates on airplanes, and to others linked to a mob attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, intended to prevent Biden’s 2020 election win being formalised.
Trump forced out the head of the TSA on January 20 and has not named a permanent replacement. Many Republicans in Congress had sharply criticized the program.
TSA screens more than 900 million airline passengers yearly, and continues to perform vetting functions tied to commercial aviation security.
Those being removed include the TSA’s executive assistant administrator for operations support and the deputy assistant administrator for intelligence and analysis.
Among others, the TSA briefly placed then-lawmaker Tulsi Gabbard, now Trump’s director of national intelligence, on the “Quiet Skies” watchlist.
In 2020, an inspector general’s report said the TSA had failed to develop benchmarks to demonstrate the program’s effectiveness, and that software and system malfunctions had meant passengers were not removed from the list when they should have been.
The U.S. government sought to improve screening of potential threats after an attempt in 2009 by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to set off an explosive hidden in his underwear while aboard a U.S. airliner near Detroit.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Kevin Liffey)
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