Petition to ban Trump from security briefings nears signature goal

An online petition that seeks to bar Donald Trump from national security briefings after he made statements encouraging Russia to hack into Hillary Clinton’s email has garnered more than 100,00 signatures.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper confirmed to Time on Thursday that both Trump and Clinton and would be “offered classified national security briefings in the coming weeks, despite protests from partisans about the briefing of both nominees.” The protocol is nothing new, according to Time, which reported that the practice dates back to former President Harry Truman, and that presidential and vice presidential nominees of both parties are are given the option to be briefed about “broad threats facing the nation.”

Credo Action’s online petition is asking Clapper to deny this option to Trump after “essentially encouraging an adversarial foreign power’s cyberspying on a secretary of state’s correspondence.” As of early Friday afternoon, it had reached nearly 130,00 signatures of its 150,000 goal.

“Let’s be clear: Trump’s encouragement of a dangerous dictator like Vladimir Putin to commit espionage and publicize state secrets poses serious national security concerns, and may violate federal law. This unprecedented action is even more horrifying given that Trump is scheduled to start receiving classified national security briefings, reportedly as early as this Friday,” the petition reads.

“This cannot happen. We need to raise a massive outcry now.”

Concern over the briefings due to Trump’s words over the email hack have also come from Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, according to Time. The Democrat even suggested that intelligence agencies give Trump fake information.

Time also pointed out that Speaker of the House and Republican Paul Ryan suggested earlier this month that Clapper ban Clinton’s access to classified information afterthe FBI reported that it discovered classified information on her private email server.

Trump has reportedly denied any ties to Russia or the email hacks, but the Credo Action petition is not the only campaignthat is targeting the candidate’s remarks this week.

More than 100 celebrities have joined an anti-Trump campaignthat’s part of MoveOn.org’s United Against Hateeffort, according to Rolling Stone.

Participantsinclude Kerry Washington, Julianne Moore, Neil Patrick Harris, Macklemore, Shonda Rhimes, Ryan Murphy, Michael Moore, Samuel L. Jackson, Mark Ruffalo, Lena Dunham, Rashida Jones and Russell Simmons. The celebrities and others have pledged to “use the power of our voice and the power of our vote to defeat Donald Trump and the hateful ideology he represents, according to Rolling Stone.

In a letter posted to Micand signed by the celebrities, Trump’s language targeting groups, such as Hispanics, women and the disabled is the focus: “Some of us come from the groups Trump has attacked. Some of us don’t. But as history has shown, it’s often only a matter of time before the ‘other’ becomes me.”