Will Trump's campaign manager get security clearance? Will Trump?

Successful campaign managers and strategists who get their clients elected president often wind up in influential positions in the White House.   Think Karl Rove (George Bush) and David Axelrod (Barack Obama), as only the latest two to follow that path.

Anyone that close to the president presumably has to have security clearance.   Which may present a problem if Donald Trump (perish the thought) should get elected.   This concern surfaced when it was announced that Trump would begin getting security briefings once he is formally the Republican nominee.

Ben Smith of BuzzFeed reported on the activities of Trump's new campaign director Paul Manafort that might be a problem.   Much of his recent work has been for pro-Russian forces in Ukraine and "doing complex deals for an oligarch with close ties to Putin."

Smith continues:  "Manafort may be best known as manager for 2010 campaign of Viktor Yanukovych, the Ukrainian politician whose ouster as president prompted a Russian invasion of the country. He has, according to court documents, managed tens of millions of dollars for Oleg Deripaska, an oligarch denied entry to the U.S. reportedly for ties to organized crime, but so close to Vladimir Putin that top Russian officials fought (unsuccessfully) to get him a visa."

Adam Blickstein, a former aide to former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, sounded a similar note of alarm.  “Given his dubious foreign connections, it’s fair to assume that many in the intelligence and national security community would be extremely wary of him handling or receiving material at even the lowest level of classification.”

Smith quotes an unnamed former Republican national security official as putting it more bluntly:  “[Manafort] is an intelligence classification vetting nightmare scenario.” 

It's not only Manafort.  Many are concerned about Trump himself being given access to security secrets.   Given his record of throwing out snippets of gossip ("people are saying") and quoting the National Inquirer as though it is serious journalism, can he be trusted to separate state secrets from hearsay?

A newly elected Commander-in-Chief has to be ready on day one.   But this also means giving a lot of classified information to the one who goes on to lose the election.   Maybe it's time to change that tradition and wait until after the November election and brief only the one who wins.

I've been wondering:  When, if at all, do presidential candidates get vetted for security clearance?    What would happen if they discover something that would ordinarily make a person ineligible for top clearance?   Obviously you can't have a president who can't be told everything.   Can we?

Ralph