Ex-CIA director hits back after clearance revoked
WASHINGTON — John Brennan, the CIA director under President Barack Obama, struck back at President Trump on Thursday for revoking his security clearance, calling the president’s claims of “no collusion” with Russia to influence the 2016 election “hogwash” and arguing that the commander in chief was trying to silence anyone who would dare challenge him.
“Mr. Trump clearly has become more desperate to protect himself and those close to him, which is why he made the politically motivated decision to revoke my security clearance in an attempt to scare into silence others who might dare to challenge him,” Brennan wrote in an opinion article in The New York Times. He said the move made it more important than ever for Robert Mueller, the special counsel, to complete his investigation of Russia’s election misdeeds without interference from Trump.
Trump’s decision to revoke the security clearance drew rebukes Thursday from national security officials and members of both political parties, who called it an extraordinary act of retaliation that reflected authoritarian tactics.
In a statement Wednesday, Trump cited what he called Brennan’s “erratic” behavior and “increasingly frenzied commentary,” as grounds for stripping the former intelligence chief of his access to classified information, saying that Brennan had abused his security clearance “to make a series of unfounded and outrageous allegations.”
Trump’s decision, announced Wednesday by Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the press secretary, came only a few weeks after Sanders warned that Trump was considering revoking the clearances of Brennan and others who he believed had politicized and inappropriately profited from their access to delicate information. It was the latest assault by a president who has routinely questioned the loyalties of national security officials and dismissed some of their findings — particularly the conclusion that Moscow intervened in the 2016 election — as attacks against him.
In an interview later in the day with The Wall Street Journal, Trump drew a direct connection between the investigation and the targeting of Brennan and others whose security clearances he had said were under review.
“I call it the rigged witch hunt,” Trump said. “And these people led it!”
“So I think it’s something that had to be done,” he added.
Step by step, from the moment 10 days into his administration that he fired the acting attorney general, Sally Yates, Trump has overseen the removal of top national security officials who have defied him or worked at senior levels of the Russia investigation. They include James Comey, the former FBI director; Andrew McCabe, the former FBI deputy director; and Peter Strzok, the former FBI counterintelligence agent who helped oversee the Hillary Clinton email inquiry and the Russia investigation and disparaged Trump in a series of inflammatory texts.
Trump’s action against Brennan appeared to be the first time that a president has ever issued or revoked a clearance outside of the established process, according to Bradley Moss, a lawyer who has written on the issue.