Trump steps up attacks on ex-CIA chief Brennan
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump lashed out at John Brennan on Saturday in the latest effort to counter criticism of his decision to revoke the former CIA director’s security clearance.
Trump said in a Twitter post Saturday that Brennan “will go down as easily the WORST” CIA director in history and called him “a loudmouth, partisan, political hack who cannot be trusted with the secrets to our country!”
The president also suggested that unspecified “mistakes” Brennan made while serving as CIA director should be “looked at.”
Trumps’ comments came after days of criticism from former national security officials and military leaders who cast Trump’s cancellation of Brennan’s clearance — apparent retaliation for his criticism of the president — as a dangerous precedent.
According to senior administration officials, the White House has drafted documents revoking the security clearances of other current and former officials whom Trump has demanded be punished for criticizing him or playing a role in the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Trump wants to sign “most, if not all” of them, said one White House official, who indicated that communications aides, including press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Bill Shine, the newly named deputy chief of staff, have discussed the optimum times to release them as a distraction during unfavorable news cycles.
Some presidential aides echoed concerns raised by outside critics that the threatened revocations smack of a Nixonian enemies list, with little or no substantive national security justification.
While he has frequently called special counsel Robert Mueller’s inquiry into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election a “rigged witch hunt,” and did so again Friday, Trump’s move against Brennan, and threats to move against others, has brought the controversy to a new level.
The senior White House official acknowledged that the step against Brennan had been prepared in late July, when Sanders first said Trump was considering it. But the decision to take that step was made last week to divert attention from heavy coverage of a book critical of Trump released by fired White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman.
The White House did not suggest that Brennan had committed any security breaches.
On Friday night, Brennan said on MSNBC that Trump’s is “drunk with power,” and criticized Republicans in Congress for turning a blind eye to the president’s actions.