Trump is not trying to silence Brennan

If the US president’s goal was mere punishment, he would have simply urged the CIA to revoke the security clearance

United States President Donald Trump’s decision to revoke the security clearance of former CIA director John Brennan is, according to conventional wisdom, an effort to silence his critics. This is what Brennan himself says, though there’s no need to take his word for it. James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence and potential target for security clearance retaliation, agrees. Even the American Civil Liberties Union, which had harsh words for Brennan during his tenure at the CIA, says Trump’s action violates Brennan’s First Amendment rights.

As is so often the case, however, the conventional wisdom is wrong. Far from trying to silence Brennan, Trump is elevating him. He wants to make Brennan the face of the so-called resistance. This is the Trump playbook. Why do you think he keeps tweeting about Maxine Waters? He is a man who approaches politics like professional wrestling, happy to play the villain if it energises his base. And for Trump, Brennan is a perfect adversary.

There are at least three reasons for this. To start with, a fight with Brennan is at this moment a great way to change the subject from the trial of his former campaign manager Paul Manafort, and the slow-motion revelations of his former aide Omarosa Manigault Newman, who says there is a recording of him using a racial slur.

This also plays into Trump’s broader strategy. It’s no secret that the president is now campaigning against what his supporters deride as a “deep state”, a permanent national security bureaucracy that he believes undermines his presidency.

It’s wrong to ascribe a single motivation to the vast network of national security and intelligence agencies in the US government, or to presume that these institutions are more powerful than the president. Indeed, Trump’s very decision to revoke Brennan’s clearance undermines this thesis.

That said, running against the deep state provides Trump a rhetorical crutch. It’s a built-in excuse for failing to deliver on his 2016 campaign promises. Sitting presidents usually have to run as incumbents. Trump can try to run for re-election as an outsider. And is there a better poster boy for the alleged deep state than Brennan?

The best and final reason Trump wants to prolong this battle is that, for all of Brennan’s earnest passion, he is an easy political target.

Start with Brennan’s recent obsession, Russia. It’s true that, as CIA director, Brennan took a keen interest in the prospect of Russian agents suborning members of the Trump campaign. That said, Brennan was a senior national security official throughout the Barack Obama presidency. It was not until Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014 that Obama began countering Russian aggression — and even then the policy was tempered by the administration’s primary goal of getting a nuclear agreement with Iran.

Ringing the alarm bell

Daniel Hoffman, a former CIA station chief in Moscow, told me that the Obama administration was less interested in holding Russia accountable for its actions in Syria and Ukraine than in getting Russia’s cooperation in signing a nuclear agreement with Iran. “My impression was that John Brennan felt we could come to terms with Russia,” he said.

Brennan would argue that he rang the alarm inside the government about Russia’s campaign to influence the 2016 election in favour of Trump (his efforts are richly detailed in Russian Roulette, by David Corn and Michael Isikoff). But he was stymied in part by a White House that did not want to launch a full counteroffensive during the campaign. But none of this explains why Brennan did not act sooner against Russia.

Brennan is also a divisive figure for progressives. As the American Civil Liberties Union’s own statement defending the former director notes: “Brennan’s record is full of grave missteps, and we have been unsparing in our criticism of his defence of the CIA torture programme and his role in unlawful lethal strikes abroad.” Drone strikes and torture are only part of Brennan’s problems with the Left.

Of course, Trump’s decision to target the security clearances of his critics is vindictive and petty. But it’s a mistake to think it was impetuous. Trump understands that singling out Brennan will only amplify Brennan’s voice. If mere punishment were Trump’s goal, he would have simply urged the CIA to revoke Brennan’s clearance. Instead, he did it himself — thereby letting the world know that Brennan is his foil. And so far, Brennan has obliged. ■ Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy.