US President Donald Trump abruptly revoked the security clearance of former CIA director John Brennan, an unprecedented act of retribution against a vocally critical former top US official.
Later, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Trump drew a direct connection between the Russia investigation and his decision, citing Brennan as among those he held responsible for the investigation.
“I call it the rigged witch hunt, [it] is a sham,” Trump told the Journal, which posted the story online on Wednesday night. “And these people led it.”
Photo: AFP
The connection was not in a statement issued earlier on Wednesday, in which Trump denounced Brennan’s criticism of him and spoke anxiously of “the risks posed by his erratic conduct and behavior.”
Trump also threatened to yank the clearances of a handful of people, including former top intelligence and law enforcement officials, as well as a current member of the US Department of Justice. All are critics of him or are people who Trump appears to believe are against him.
Trump’s statement was dated July 26, suggesting it could have been held and then released when needed to change a damaging subject. The White House later released a new version without the date.
Democratic members of the US Congress said his action smacked of an “enemies list” among fellow Americans and the behavior of leaders in “dictatorships, not democracies.”
Brennan, in a telephone interview with MSNBC, called the move an “abuse of power by Mr Trump.”
“I do believe that Mr Trump decided to take this action, as he’s done with others, to try to intimidate and suppress any criticism of him or his administration,” he said, adding that he would not be deterred from speaking out.
Trump accused Brennan of having “leveraged his status as a former high-ranking official with access to highly sensitive information to make a series of unfounded and outrageous allegations, wild outbursts on the Internet and television about this administration.”
Brennan has indeed been deeply critical of Trump’s conduct, calling his performance at a news conference last month with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Finland “nothing short of treasonous.”
Brennan continued that criticism on Wednesday.
“I’ve seen this type of behavior and actions on the part of foreign tyrants and despots and autocrats for many, many years during my CIA and national security career,” he said.
Former CIA directors and other top national security officials are typically allowed to keep their clearances, at least for some time, so they can advise their successors and hold certain jobs.
Trump’s statement said the Brennan issue raises larger questions about the practice of allowing former officials to maintain their security clearances and said that others officials’ were under review, including former FBI director James Comey, former director of national intelligence James Clapper, former CIA director Michael Hayden, former national security adviser Susan Rice and former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe.
Also on the list: fired FBI agent Peter Strzok, who was removed from the Russia investigation over anti-Trump text messages; former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, with whom Strzok exchanged messages; and senior justice department official Bruce Ohr, who Trump accused on Twitter of “helping disgraced Christopher Steele ‘find dirt on Trump.’”
Ohr was friends with Steele, the former British intelligence officer commissioned by a US political research firm to explore Trump’s alleged ties with the Russian government.
At least two of the former officials, Comey and McCabe, do not have security clearances and none of the eight receive intelligence briefings.
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