Former CIA Director John Brennan accused Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, of selectively releasing information to accuse law enforcement officials of improperly obtaining a warrant to monitor the communications of a former Trump campaign adviser, the Washington Post reports.
Said Brennan: “It’s just appalling and clearly underscores how partisan Mr. Nunes has been. He has abused the chairmanship of the Intelligence Committee.”
“If allowed to continue along this senseless path, Mr. Trump will do lasting harm to American society and to our standing in the world. By his words and his actions, Mr. Trump is putting our national security and our collective futures at grave risk.”
— Former CIA Director John Brennan, in a letter to CNN.
Former CIA director John Brennan said for first time that he became concerned last year that the Russian government was trying to influence members of the Trump campaign to act — wittingly or unwittingly — on Moscow’s behalf, the New York Times reports.
Said Brennan: “I encountered and am aware of information and intelligence that revealed contacts and interactions between Russian officials and U.S. persons involved in the Trump campaign that I was concerned about because of known Russian efforts to suborn such individuals. It raised questions in my mind about whether Russia was able to gain the cooperation of those individuals.”
Outgoing CIA Director John Brennan ripped into Donald Trump for “talking and tweeting” about possibly easing sanctions against Russia, saying the president-elect lacks a full understanding of the threat Moscow poses to the United States, the Associated Press reports.
Said Brennan: “I think he has to be mindful that he does not have a full appreciation and understanding of what the implications are of going down that road.”
“At his first polygraph test to enter the CIA, the future director had a secret,” CNN reports.
“John Brennan recalled being asked a standard question for a top security clearance at his early CIA lie detector test: Have you ever worked with or for a group that was dedicated to overthrowing the US?”
Said Brennan: “I froze. This was back in 1980, and I thought back to a previous election where I voted, and I voted for the Communist Party candidate.”
CIA Director John Brennan told NBC News that his agency will not engage in harsh “enhanced interrogation” practices, including waterboarding, even if ordered to by a future president.
Said Brennan said: “I will not agree to carry out some of these tactics and techniques I’ve heard bandied about because this institution needs to endure.”
CIA Director John Brennan denounced “hand-wringing” over intrusive spying and said that leaks of classified information had made it harder to identify terrorists, the New York Times reports.
CIA Director John Brennan “has been as close as anyone to President Obama on his most sensitive national security decisions, from drone strikes to the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden,” Bloomberg reports.
“That helps explain why Obama isn’t abandoning his Central Intelligence Agency director despite some calls for his resignation following release of a Senate report detailing the CIA’s brutal interrogations of terrorism suspects during President George W. Bush’s administration. Brennan was a top official at the agency under Bush and then served as head of the National Counterterrorism Center before going to work for Obama.”