John Brennan Security Clearance Revoked

 

President Trump has revoked the former C.I.A. Director John Brennan's security clearance.

The White House said it's considering pulling the security clearances for other former top officials many of whom have been critical of the president.

"I'd like to begin by reading a statement from the president. 'I've decided to revoke the security clearance of John Brennan, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency. At this point in my administration, any benefits that senior officials might glean from consultations with Mr. Brennan are now outweighed by the risks posed by his erratic conduct and behavior.'" President Trump has taken away John Brennan's security clearance and says he's considering doing the same to other former national security officials.

That's even though two of the officials, including the former F.B.I. director James Comey, no longer have clearances.

"I think he has demonstrated time and time again that he lies to the American people, and that he is not fulfilling the responsibilities of the office of the presidency." "The United States used to be the defender of our European allies and to push back against the Russians. The fact now that Mr. Trump is aligning himself with Mr. Putin is a concern." "He is giving aid and comfort to the enemy, and it needs to stop." "Oh, I have no confidence in a guy like Brennan. And I think he's a total lowlife."When the president tries to use the Department of Justice as kind of a private investigatory body, that's, uh, not good for the country.

" "Internally from the president?" "Exactly.

" "Is Donald Trump unfit to be president?" "Yes.

PresidentTrump revoked the security clearance of John O. Brennan, the former C.I.A. director under President Barack Obama, on Wednesday in a striking act of retaliation against an outspoken critic.

The president threatened to do the same to other former national security officials who have antagonized him.

Citing what he called Mr. Brennan's "erratic" behavior and "increasingly frenzied commentary," Mr. Trump dispatched Sarah Huckabee Sanders, his press secretary, to read a statement saying that Mr. Brennan had abused his access to the United States' secrets "to make a series of unfounded and outrageous allegations.

The statement came only a few weeks after Ms. Sanders warned that Mr. Trump was considering revoking the clearances of Mr. 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.

Step by step, from the moment 10 days into his administration that he fired the acting attorney general, Sally Q. Yates, Mr. 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 B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director; Andrew G. McCabe, the former F.B.I. deputy director; and Peter Strzok, the former F.B.I. counterintelligence agent who helped oversee the Hillary Clinton email inquiry and the Russia investigation and disparaged Mr. Trump in a series of inflammatory texts.

In an interview later Wednesday with The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Trump argued that his list of potential targets for having security clearances revoked was not confined to his political opponents, saying that he "would put a Republican on, too, if I thought they were incompetent or crazy.

The revocation of Mr. Brennan's security clearance also appeared to be a way to change the subject from damaging accusations in a tell-all book by Omarosa Manigault Newman, a former reality TV show star who worked in the White House and now claims that Mr. Trump used a slur to disparage African-Americans and is in a state of mental decline.

Mr. Trump's decision drew a swift response from Mr. Brennan.

"This action is part of a broader effort by Mr. Trump to suppress freedom of speech & punish critics," Mr. Brennan wrote on Twitter, adding that he would not relent.

The White House statement on Mr. Brennan was dated July 26, three days after Ms. Sanders first announced that Mr. Trump was considering revoking his critics' clearances.

Mr. Trump's decision to follow through in punishing Mr. Brennan came only a day after his campaign brought an arbitration case against Ms. Manigault Newman to enforce a nondisclosure agreement that she signed in 2016.Mr. Brennan has become increasingly vocal in his criticism of the president and often tweets or appears on television as a contributor on NBC to question Mr. Trump's fitness for office.

Last month, Mr. Brennan said the president should be impeached for "treasonous" behavior after Mr. Trump stood next to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia at a news conference in Finland and cast doubt on the conclusion of the intelligence agencies that Moscow interfered in the 2016 presidential election.

On Tuesday, the story of Mr. Trump's reality star aide turned accuser intersected with that of his frequent public antagonist when Mr. Brennan chastised the president in a tweet for calling Ms. Manigault Newman "that dog.

Mr. Brennan wrote: "It's astounding how often you fail to live up to minimum standards of decency, civility, & probity.

Seems like you will never understand what it means to be president, nor what it takes to be a good, decent, & honest person.

Ms. Sanders said the president was also considering yanking the security clearances of other former officials and one current Justice Department official, all of whom have angered the president.

The group includes Michael V. Hayden, the former head of the National Security Agency who was made C.I.A. director under George W. Bush; Susan Rice, a national security adviser under Mr. Obama; James R. Clapper Jr., the former director of national intelligence under Mr. Obama; and Ms. Yates.

Others who no longer have a clearance might lose the ability to have it reinstated, the president warned.

Mr. Comey and Mr. McCabe, neither of whom currently have a security clearance, are part of the list.

The only current official on Mr. Trump's list is Bruce Ohr, a lawyer in the Justice Department's criminal division.

The president has criticized Mr. Ohr on Twitter because of Mr. Ohr's friendship with Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer who compiled a salacious dossier containing damaging information about the president.

Mr. Ohr's wife, Nellie - Mr. Trump singled her out as "beautiful" in a tweet over the weekend - worked until September 2016 as a contractor for Fusion GPS, the research firm that commissioned the dossier.

Clearances are typically revoked for cause, because of a security concern like alcoholism, financial problems, health concerns or the mishandling of classified material.

"This is the president taking a step that he most likely had the legal authority to take, but that no other president has ever thought it proper or justified to do on his own.

The standard procedure for revoking a security clearance is initiated by the sponsoring agency - which in this case would have been the C.I.A. - and includes memos outlining why a clearance is being withdrawn and, in some cases, an opportunity for the current or former official to offer a defense or rebuttal.

The C.I.A. did not begin a proceeding against Mr. Brennan or take action to remove his clearance, according to officials familiar with the process.

Mr. Hayden, in an interview with CNN, said the president had "absolute authority" to oversee security clearances, but that by revoking Mr. Brennan's for political reasons, Mr. Trump had degraded "the dignity of the office" of the president and suggested he wanted to pressure his critics into silence.

In an email, Mr. Hayden said that losing his clearance would have "a marginal impact on the work I do," noting, for example, that he would have to resign from the proxy board of an American subsidiary of an Irish company to ensure that its work respects the classification rules of the United States.

Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, who first raised the prospect of stripping Mr. Brennan of his clearance in a meeting last month with Mr. Trump at the White House, applauded the president's action on Wednesday.

"He participated in a shredding of constitutional rights, lied to Congress and has been monetizing and making partisan political use of his clearance since his departure," Mr. Paul said in a statement.

Democrats said Mr. Trump's move against Mr. Brennan was dangerous, likening it to President Richard M. Nixon's drawing up of a list of political opponents against whom he would use the government to extract revenge.