Ryan says Trump just ‘trolling’ on threat to pull clearances
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s threat to revoke the security clearances of top former officials critical of his administration left congressional leaders stunned and confused, with the House speaker shrugging it off as a bit of “trolling.”
“I think he’s just trolling people, honestly,” Paul Ryan, R-Wis., told reporters Tuesday with a laugh.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was surprised to learn that some of the former top national security and intelligence officials still had access to classified information. But both GOP leaders were leaving the president’s plan to the White House.
“I don’t have any particular advice to give the president,” McConnell said Tuesday. “It’s an interesting question I’ll look forward to seeing what the president decides on it.”
Ryan said it is “something that’s in the purview of the executive branch.”
Democrats and some Republicans, though, viewed the threat against the six former officials with much more concern.
Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., noted the list of those named by the White House “exactly coincides with those who’ve been publicly critical of the president.”
“This is the sort of attack on free speech, the press and the rights of individuals to speak out in our country that really doesn’t serve the president well,” Coons said on CNN.
The threat to deny the officials access to classified information is the latest escalation in the president’s war with members of the U.S. intelligence community.
On Monday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the president was “exploring the mechanisms” to strip clearance from former CIA Director John Brennan as well as five other former officials who have held some of the most sensitive positions in government: former FBI Director Jim Comey; James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence; former CIA Director Michael Hayden; former national security adviser Susan Rice; and Andrew McCabe, who served as Trump’s deputy FBI director until he was fired in March.
The leaders have served in both Democratic and Republican administrations, including Trump’s. But at least two of the former officials, McCabe and Comey, do not currently have security clearances, making the threat moot.
Sanders accused the officials of having “politicized and in some cases monetized their public service and security clearances” by making “baseless accusations” that the Trump administration had improper contact with Russia or was influenced by Russia.
Sanders did not cite specific comments made by any of the officials. But the president has been seething over the backlash to his meeting last week with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and the ongoing investigations into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election, whether his campaign aides were involved in the effort and whether he obstructed justice.
The idea for blocking access was initially raised Monday by Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who tweeted that he would be meeting with Trump to discuss revoking Brennan’s clearance for his scathing criticism of the president’s performance at the summit with Putin.
Paul has been no fan of Brennan — he filibustered for 13 hours in a failed attempt to block his 2013 nomination for CIA director — and the senator’s non-interventionist views put him at odds with much of the rest of the national security establishment.
But in Trump, the Paul has found an audience and an ally as he tries to move the GOP off its hawkish foreign policy traditions. He would have preferred a more general revocation of credentials from former officials, rather than a specific list.
“I told the president in private what I’ve been saying in public: I think there’s a great danger having talking heads on TV who are ex-CIA agents and still have classified clearance,” Paul said on Fox News.
Experts said there is some dispute about whether the president has the authority to unilaterally terminate a security clearance, but said such a move would be unprecedented and ill-advised.