Tag: John Brennan

Ex-CIA director Brennan writes in upcoming memoir that Trump blocked access to records and notes

Washington Post logoIn the fall of 2018, when former CIA director John Brennan decided to write his memoir, he asked the agency for his official records, including his notes and any documents that he had reviewed and signed that were classified. The CIA, where Brennan had worked for nearly 30 years, said no.

It was a break with decades of tradition. The CIA routinely lets former directors review classified files when writing books about their careers. Their manuscripts are scrutinized to ensure they don’t expose any national secrets.

After months of “haggling,” Brennan learned that the CIA was following the orders of the man he had spent the previous two years publicly excoriating — President Trump, who in August 2018 “had issued a directive . . . that purportedly forbids anyone in the intelligence community from sharing classified information with me.” Continue reading.

Donald Trump’s own former national security officials sign open letter applauding the Ukraine whistleblower — who they say deserves protection

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump has been angrily railing against the whistleblower in the U.S. federal government who set off the Ukraine scandal and paved the way for an impeachment inquiry, even going so far as to imply during a recent United Nations (UN) event that the whistleblower and that person’s sources should be executed for treason. But a long list of former national security officials — including former CIA Director John O’ Brennan — are rallying behind the whistleblower. And Brennan is among the 90 former security officials who signed an open letter asserting that the whistleblower did nothing wrong.

The letter explains, “While the identity of the whistleblower is not publicly known, we do know that he or she is an employee of the U.S. government. As such, he or she has, by law, the right — and indeed the responsibility — to make known, through appropriate channels, indications of serious wrongdoing. That is precisely what this whistleblower did, and we applaud the whistleblower not only for living up to that responsibility, but also, for using precisely the channels made available by federal law for raising such concerns.”

The letter, which was also signed by former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, goes on to state that “a responsible whistleblower makes all Americans safer by ensuring that serious wrongdoing can be investigated and addressed, thus advancing the cause of national security to which we have devoted our careers.”

View the complete October 7 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.

GOP takes aim at Comey, Brennan

Republicans are targeting former FBI Director James Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan as they seek to bring more attention to what they say was an unfair investigation of President Trump launched in the Obama administration.

The effort to spotlight the intelligence officials comes as Democratic calls to impeach President Trump rise in the wake of special counsel Robert Mueller’s first public remarks about his investigation.

The White House says the real controversy is the investigation of Trump that preceded Mueller’s probe, an argument Democrats contend is just a conspiracy theory peddled in order to distract from his presidential woes.

View the complete June 1 article by Olivia Beavers on The Hill website here.

Someone is taking Trump’s angry rhetoric very literally

Words matter.

Donald Trump Credit: Win McNamee, Getty Images

In the midst of the 2016 campaign, a bit of punditry was born: Take Trump seriously, not literally. Two years later, Trump has done — or tried to do — everything he literally promised on the campaign trail, and on Wednesday morning, there was more chilling evidence that words matter, and that people listening to the president may be taking him very literally.

On Wednesday morning, the Secret Service announced it had intercepted packages containing “potential explosive devices” addressed to former Secretary of State and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in New York and President Barack Obama in Washington, D.C. Not long after, the CNN New York offices were evacuated after a suspected explosive device, addressed to former CIA director and MSNBC contributor John Brennan, was found in the mailroom.

Suspicious packages were also being investigated Wednesday afternoon at the Sunrise, Florida office of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) — the former chair of the Democratic National Committee — and an office building shared by the San Diego Union-Tribune, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), and several other businesses, in San Diego, California.

View the complete October 24 article by Addy Baird on the ThinkProgress website here.

McConnell actually helped cover up Russia’s interference for Trump

A new book reveals how Sen. Mitch McConnell sought to undermine the CIA as it tried to address Russian attempts to influence the 2016 election.

Mitch McConnell, R-KY., 2018. Credit: J. Scott Applewhite, AP

A new book reveals further details of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) attempts to undermine the CIA as it raised alarms about Russian attempts to help Trump in the 2016 election.

Russia directly interfered in the 2016 election to influence the outcome. The Russian regime, at the direction of leader Vladimir Putin, sought to help Trump’s campaign and deny Hillary Clinton the presidency.

And the Trump campaign, at its highest levels, met with Russian operatives as it sought dirt on Clinton.

View the complete October 2 article by Oliver Willis on the ShareBlue.com website here.

“Trump is nuts. This time really feels different”: Trump rejects “war council” intervention, goes it alone

The following article by Gabriel Sherman was posted on the Vanity Fair website August 27, 2018:

With his closest allies defecting, the president increasingly trusts only his instincts. He “got joy” from stripping former C.I.A. director John Brennan’s security clearance. And after betrayals by Allen Weisselberg and David Pecker, a former White House official says, Trump “spent the weekend calling people and screaming.”

After Michael Cohen’s plea deal last week, Donald Trump spiraled out of control, firing wildly in all directions. He railed against “flippers” in a rambling Fox & Friends interview, and lashed out on Twitter at Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the Justice Department, and Robert Mueller. In the wake of his outbursts, White House officials have discussed whether Trump would listen to his closest New York City friends in an effort to rein him in. Two sources briefed on the matter told me that senior officials talked about inviting Rudy Giuliani and a group of Trump’s New York real-estate friends including Tom Barrack, Richard LeFrak, and Howard Lorber to the White House to stage an “intervention” last week. “It was supposed to be a war council,” one source explained. But Trump refused to take the meeting, sources said. “You know Trump—he hates being lectured to,” the source added. (Spokespeople for LeFrak and Lorber say they have no knowledge of a meeting. A spokesperson for Barrack didn’t comment.) Continue reading ““Trump is nuts. This time really feels different”: Trump rejects “war council” intervention, goes it alone”

Trump Essentially Dares Brennan to Sue Over Stripped Clearance

The following article by John T. Bennett was posted on the Roll Call website August 20, 2018:

President wants former CIA director’s ‘records, texts, emails and documents’

President Trump and his legal team are essentially daring former CIA Director John Brennan to sue the president over a terminated security clearance. Credit: Chris Maddaloni, CQ Roll Call

Donald Trump on Monday essentially dared former CIA Director John Brennan to sue him over the security clearance the president revoked last week.

Trump ordered Brennan’s security clearance turned off after the former Barack Obama aide and Cabinet official harshly criticized the sitting president, even dubbing his performance last month alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin as “treasonous.”

Brennan told MSNBC Friday night he is “thinking” about taking Trump to court over the matter, saying, “As you can imagine, a number of lawyers have reached out to say there is a very strong case here, not so much to reclaim mine but to prevent this from happening in the future. And so, I am thinking about what it is that I might want to do.”

Brennan Says He’s Considering Legal Action After Trump Revoked His Security Clearance

The following article by Elizabeth Preza was posted on the AlterNet.org website August 19, 2018:

He also called on Congress to stand up to the president.

Former CIA Director John Brennan on Sunday said he’s mulling legal action against Donald Trump over the president’s decision to revoke his security clearance.

Speaking with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Brennan said he’s considering standing up to Trump’s “abuses” in court.

“If my clearances and my reputation as I’m being pulled through the mud now, if that’s the price we’re going to pay to prevent Donald Trump from doing this against other people, to me it’s a small price to pay,” Brennan said. “So 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.”

View the complete article here.

Brennan decision reveals Trump at his worst

The following editorial by the Star Tribune Editorial Board was posted on their website August 19, 2018:

Revoking security clearances shows president’s autocratic tendencies.

The autocratic tendencies of this country’s chief executive grow stronger by the day, this time taking the form of revoking security clearances as punishment for those whose words embarrass, displease or reveal.

But in revoking the clearance of former CIA Director John Brennan, President Donald Trump has crossed a line among those trained to spot governments in crisis.

View the complete article here.

Trump caught weaponizing security clearances to kill bad news stories

The following article by Caroline Orr was posted on the ShareBlue.com website August 18, 2018:

Trump doesn’t control the media from the inside — so he’s taking a page from the modern authoritarian’s playbook and trying to control it from the outside, instead.

Credit: Olivier Doulier,/Abaca Press Sipa via AP Images

After revoking the security clearance of former CIA Director John Brennan on Wednesday, the White House reportedly started plotting to do the same to other intelligence leaders and national security officials — and then to strategically announce the decisions in an effort to control the news cycle.

According to The Washington Post, the White House has already drafted documents to strip security clearances from a laundry list of current and former officials associated with the Russia investigation.

A senior White House official told the Post on Friday that press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and deputy chief of staff Bill Shine have discussed when would be the best times to drop the news of the additional revoked security clearances. The plan, according to the Post, is to use the revocations as a distraction from negative news stories.

View the complete article here.