Trump’s denials of collusion with the Kremlin is hogwash, says ex-CIA chief

DonalD Trump and former CIa director John Brennan clashed yesterday as the ex-spy chief claimed it was ‘hogwash’ for the President to deny his election campaign team colluded with the Kremlin.

Mr Brennan lashed out at the President after Mr Trump stripped him of his government security clearance, blaming his ‘erratic conduct and behaviour’.

Writing in the new York Times, Mr Brennan – who led the CIa during the obama administration – described the decision to revoke his clearance as ‘politically motivated’.

Dismissing the President’s controversial intervention as ‘an attempt to scare into silence others who might dare to challenge him’, he added: ‘Mr Trump’s claims of no collusion [with Russia] are, in a word, hogwash.’ He said that the only question remaining is whether the collusion amounts to a ‘constituted criminally liable conspiracy’.

Mr Brennan stepped down from the CIa when Mr Trump took office in January 2017. Former CIa directors are typically allowed to keep their clearances so they can advise their successors.

It came as hundreds of media outlets came together to hit back at Mr Trump’s fierce attacks on the Press. In editorials yesterday, more than 350 newspapers across the US criticised the President for repeatedly accusing media outlets of ‘fake news’. He has also previously branded news organisations ‘the enemy of the american people’.

The campaign was led by The Boston Globe, which wrote that labelling the Press the enemy was ‘un-american’. It added: ‘The greatness of america is dependent on the role of a free Press to speak the truth to the powerful.’