Tag: John Brennan

The Memo: For Trump, this week has been anything but sleepy

The following article by Niall Stanage was posted on the Hill website August 18, 2018:

Carolyn Kaster, AP Photo

President Trump has had a wild week during the normally sleepy height of summer, lashing out against former aide Omarosa Manigault Newman, stripping former CIA Director John Brennan of his security clearance and getting into a spat with Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) as he canceled his proposed military parade in the city.

Trump also weighed in Friday on Paul Manafort’s trial before departing from the White House for the weekend, telling reporters that his former campaign chairman was “a very good person” and that it was “very sad what they’ve done” to him.

The remarks quickly led to criticism on cable television and social media, where observers said it was inappropriate at best for the president to make comments on a trial as the jury, instructed to avoid news coverage, deliberated on a verdict.

View the complete article here.

Criticism of Trump Over Brennan’s Clearance Keeps Increasing

The following article by Niels Lesniewski was posted on the Roll Call website August 17, 2018:

Sen. Mark Warner planning an effort to change presidential power over clearances

Sen. Mark Warner, D-VA. Credit: Tom Williams, CQ Roll Call file photo

The number of intelligence community officials who are blasting President Donald Trump for revoking former CIA Director John O. Brennan’s security clearance keeps going up.

And a key senator is drafting a legislative proposal to prevent a repeat.

A Thursday night statement denouncing Trump’s decision has so far featured the names of 15 former senior CIA and other intelligence agency leaders. And that’s been followed by another statement signed by 60 other former intelligence officials critical of the president’s move.

Trump has now fired or threatened most senior officials related to the Russia investigation

The following article by Aaron Blake was posted on the Washington Post website August 16, 2018:

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders read a statement from President Trump revoking ex-CIA director John Brennan’s security clearance on Aug. 15. (Reuters)

President Trump says that although he has never obstructed justice in the Russia investigation, he does “fight back.”

And, as of Wednesday, he had “fought back” against a majority of top officials involved in leading, overseeing or making administration decisions about that probe. According to an analysis by The Washington Post, of the more than a dozen officials with what could be construed as leadership roles in the investigation, more than half have been fired and/or threatened with official recourse.

The most recent examples were the White House’s revocation of former CIA director John Brennan’s security clearance Wednesday and the threats to do the same for nine other current and former officials who have run afoul of Trump. In one fell swoop, the White House effectively more than doubled its enemies list — and served notice that ex-officials who were involved in the probe will not be permitted to criticize Trump willy-nilly.

View the complete article here.

John Brennan: President Trump’s Claims of No Collusion Are Hogwash

The following commentary by John O. Brennan, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, was posted on the New York Times website August 16, 2018:

That’s why the president revoked my security clearance: to try to silence anyone who would dare challenge him.

Former CIA Director John Brennan, Credit: Greg Nash

When Alexander Bortnikov, the head of Russia’s internal security service, told me during an early August 2016 phone call that Russia wasn’t interfering in our presidential election, I knew he was lying. Over the previous several years I had grown weary of Mr. Bortnikov’s denials of Russia’s perfidy — about its mistreatment of American diplomats and citizens in Moscow, its repeated failure to adhere to cease-fire agreements in Syria and its paramilitary intervention in eastern Ukraine, to name just a few issues.

When I warned Mr. Bortnikov that Russian interference in our election was intolerable and would roil United States-Russia relations for many years, he denied Russian involvement in any election, in America or elsewhere, with a feigned sincerity that I had heard many times before. President Vladimir Putin of Russia reiterated those denials numerous times over the past two years, often to Donald Trump’s seeming approval.

Russian denials are, in a word, hogwash.

View the complete article here.

Trump revokes John Brennan’s security clearance

The following article was posted on the Axios website August 15, 2018:

Credit: William B. Plowman, NBC, NBC NewsWire via Getty Images

President Trump has revoked the security clearance of former CIA Director John Brennan due to “erratic conduct and behavior,” according to White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders at today’s press briefing.

Why it matters: Sanders said that Trump was using his “constitutional authority” as president to revoke Brennan’s clearance — something that has never been done before, according to Lawfare. Trump is also “evaluating action” regarding the current and former clearances of several other former intelligence and law enforcement officials like James Comey, James Clapper, Michael Hayden, Sally Yates, Susan Rice, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and Bruce Ohr.

The timing: The decision comes one day after Brennan responded to Trump’s infamous tweet calling former White House staffer Omarosa Manigault Newman a “dog” with a tweet of his own: “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. So disheartening, so dangerous for our Nation.”

View the complete article here.

Brennan: Trump White House has ‘a general insecurity’ about Obama Administration

On the February 4, 2018, “Meet the Press”:

Former CIA Director John Brennan says that he is “appalled” by the tenor of partisan fighting in Washington, and that it hurts the intelligence community.

View the post here.

Brennan: Trump called us hacks to delegitimize intelligence report

The following article by Mallory Shelbourne was posted on the Hill website November 12, 2017:

Former CIA Director John Brennan said Sunday that President Trump called him a political hack in order to cast doubt on his and other intelligence agencies’ conclusion that Russia sought to influence the 2016 election.

“Well first of all, he was referring to us as political hacks because he was trying to delegitimize the intelligence community assessment that was done,” Brennan told CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Trump on Saturday said Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former FBI Director James Comey are political hacks. Those leaders were in charge in January, when a declassified report from those three agencies was released that said Russia called for an influence campaign aimed at interfering in the United States election. Continue reading “Brennan: Trump called us hacks to delegitimize intelligence report”