Ex-spy chiefs gang up against Trump
Intel community defends Brennan’s right to free speech
WASHINGTON — In a remarkable rebuke to President Trump, more than a dozen former U.S. intelligence chiefs have signed a harshly worded letter in support of former CIA Director John Brennan after Trump abruptly revoked his security clearance.
“We feel compelled to respond in the wake of the ill-considered and unprecedented remarks and actions by the White House,” reads the letter from the officials, who served both Democratic and Republican presidents.
They called Trump’s action “inappropriate” and “deeply regrettable.”
Signing the letter Thursday was a virtual who’s who of American spy chiefs dating back to the late 1980s, a striking show of solidarity from the top ranks of the national security establishment.
They included former directors of Central Intelligence William Webster, George Tenet and Porter Goss; former CIA directors Michael Hayden, Leon Panetta and David Petraeus; former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper; and former deputy CIA directors John McLaughlin, Stephen Kappes, Avril Haines, David Cohen and Michael Morell.
Robert Gates, the former CIA director and secretary of defense, signed on to the letter Friday morning.
Having served Republican and Democratic presidents, Gates is known for staying out of the political arena.
His addition to the bipartisan list only served to underscore the alarm in national security circles fol- President Donald Trump stops to talk to reporters and members of the media as he makes his way toward Marine One on Friday. lowing Trump’s punitive swipe at Brennan, seen by many as little more than an attempt to silence his enemies.
Then on Friday, 60 former CIA officials issued their own statement, joining a chorus of opposition from the intelligence community to Trump’s decisions to threaten to or actually pull clearances. They said former government officials have a right to express unclassified views on national security issues without fear of being punished for doing so.
They said they did not necessarily concur with all the opinions expressed by Brennan, or the way in which he expressed them.
But they said they believe the “country will be weakened if there is a political litmus test applied before seasoned experts are allowed to share their views.”
Leaving the White House for a trip to New York, Trump told reporters Friday he’s gotten a “tremendous response” since revoking Brennan’s clearance.
He also criticized the special counsel investigation into Russian collusion and obstruction of justice as “a rigged witch hunt,” claiming that many intelligence officials involved in it should be under investigation themselves.
“They should be looking at the other side,” Trump said.
He singled out Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, the only current government employee whose security clearance the White House claimed Wednesday to be reviewing.
Ohr was an early Justice Department contact of Christopher Steele, the private investigator whose dossier on the Trump cam- paign’s Russia connections was a cornerstone of the government’s initial investigation. Ohr’s wife also once worked for the firm that compiled the dossier.
“Bruce Ohr is a disgrace,” Trump said, hinting that he would strip more security clearances soon. “I suspect I’ll be taking it away very quickly.”
The letter from the former intelligence officials followed an angry open letter to Trump from retired Adm. William McRaven, who headed U.S. Joint Special Operations Command and oversaw the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden. In an op-ed published by the Washington Post, he excoriated Trump’s “McCarthyera tactics” and said he would “consider it an honor” for Trump to revoke his security clearance in solidarity with Brennan.
White House press secre- tary Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced Wednesday that Trump had stripped Brennan of his security clearance, and therefore his access to classified information.
Trump did so, she said, because of questions about his “objectivity and credibility” and his “erratic conduct and behavior.”
In his statement, Trump said he also was considering revoking security clearances for other critics, including Clapper and Hayden, former national security adviser Susan Rice, former FBI Director James Comey, and former FBI or Justice Department officials Sally Yates, Andrew McCabe, Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, as well as Ohr.
Several of them have said they no longer have clearances.
Brennan has been an vociferous critic of Trump, and the president’s action was seen as an effort by the White House to punish a political enemy.
Heworks as a paid security analyst for NBC News.
The former intelligence chiefs praised Brennan as “enormously talented, capable and patriotic,” and dismissed allegations of any wrongdoing as “baseless.”
“The president’s action,” they wrote, “has nothing to do with who should and should not hold security clearances — and everything to do with an attempt to stifle free speech.”
OnFriday, Trump pushed back on the notion that he was restricting Brennan’s right to free speech.
“There’s no silence,” he said to reporters on the South Lawn of the White House. “If anything, I’m giving him a bigger voice.”