Former CIA director John Brennan said “that he is willing to take President Trump to court to prevent other current and former officials from having their security clearances revoked, escalating a battle over whether the president is misusing the power of his office to retaliate against opponents,” the Washington Post reports.
Said Brennan: “I am going to do whatever I can personally to try to prevent these abuses in the future, and if it means going to court, I will do that.”0
Former CIA Director John Brennan told MSNBC that President Trump was “drunk on power” after he revoked Brennan’s security clearance.
Said Brennan: “I think right now, this country is in a crisis in terms of what Mr. Trump has done and is liable to do.”
He added: “And so, are the Republicans on the Hill — who have given him a pass — going to wait for a disaster to happen before they actually find their backbones and spines, to speak up against somebody who clearly, clearly is not carrying out his responsibilities with any sense of purpose and common sense from the standpoint of national security.”
Eli Lake: “President 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.”
“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 energizes his base. And for Trump, Brennan is a perfect adversary.”
The Washington Post notes that President Trump “confessed that his true motivation” for revoking former CIA director John Brennan’s security clearance was the Russia investigation.
Said Trump, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal: “I call it the rigged witch hunt; it is a sham. And these people led it! So I think it’s something that had to be done.”
“You could be forgiven for having flashbacks to Trump’s interview with NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt in the aftermath of his firing last year of James B. Comey as FBI director. Then, as now, the White House offered a series of motivations for the crackdown on a person who was a liability in the Russia probe. Then, as now, it seemed clear what the actual motivation was. And then, as now, Trump appeared to go out and just admit the actual motivation.”
Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) defended President Trump’s decision to revoke John Brennan’s security clearance telling CNN the former CIA director is a “butthead” who doesn’t need the clearance.
Said Kennedy: “I think most Americans look at our national intelligence experts as being above politics. Mr. Brennan has demonstrated that that’s not the case. He’s been totally political. I think I called him a ‘butthead’ and I meant it. I think he’s given the national intelligence community a bad name.”
“I speak out for the simple reason that Mr. Trump is failing to live up to the standards that we should all expect of a president. As someone who had the rare privilege of directly serving four presidents, I will continue to speak out loudly and critically until integrity, decency, wisdom — and maybe even some humility — return to the White House.”
— Former CIA Director John Brennan, writing in the Washington Post.
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.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Wonk Wire, Political Job Hunt and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
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