In a long-overdue move, President Trump revokes the security clearance of John Brennan (shown), as many Americans hope he will also begin prosecution of Brennan, James Comey, James Clapper, Andrew McCabe, and other Deep State actors.
At a White House press briefing Wednesday, President Trump’s press secretary Sarah Sanders announced that the president had revoked the security clearance of former CIA Director John Brennan. It was a move that Trump had announced he was considering back in July.
Sanders began the briefing by quoting a prepared statement by President Trump, which began: “As the head of the executive branch and Commander-in-Chief, I have a unique constitutional responsibility to protect the nation’s classified information, including by controlling access to it. Today, in fulfilling that responsibility, I have decided to revoke the security clearance of John Brennan, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.”
“Historically,” the president noted “former heads of intelligence and law enforcement agencies have been allowed to retain access to classified information after their government service so that they can consult with their successors regarding matters about which they may have special insights and as a professional courtesy.” However, the statement continued, “Neither of these justifications supports Mr. Brennan’s continued access to classified information. First, at this point in my administration, any benefits that senior officials might glean from consultations with Mr. Brennan are now outweighed by the risks posed by his erratic conduct and behavior. Second, that conduct and behavior has tested and far exceeded the limits of any professional courtesy that may have been due to him.”
The president’s briefing statement then provided only a very brief sampling — out of the many that could be cited — of legitimate reasons for the action against Brennan. “Mr. Brennan has a history that calls into question his objectivity and credibility,” it said, before providing these details: “In 2014, for example, he denied to Congress that CIA officials, under his supervision, had improperly accessed the computer files of congressional staffers. He told the Council of Foreign Relations that the CIA would never do such a thing. The CIA’s Inspector General, however, contradicted Mr. Brennan directly, concluding unequivocally that agency officials had indeed improperly accessed congressional staffers’ files. More recently, Mr. Brennan told Congress that the intelligence community did not make use of the so-called Steele dossier in an assessment regarding the 2016 election, an assertion contradicted by at least two other senior officials in the intelligence community and all of the facts.”
President Trump also pointed out that Brennan is monetizing his former official status and classified access in his new gig as an “expert” analyst/commentator in the screechy, noisy NBC/MSNBC anti-Trump choir. He noted that Brennan “has recently 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. Mr. Brennan’s lying and recent conduct, characterized by increasingly frenzied commentary, is wholly inconsistent with access to the nation’s most closely held secrets, and facilities [facilitates] the very aim of our adversaries, which is to sow division and chaos.”
As we have reported previously on many occasions (see, for instance, Deep State-Fake News Marriage: CIA, NSA, FBI Operatives Join Media In Droves), we have seen an unprecedented rush of high-level Deep State agents from our various intelligence agencies into the ranks of the viciously anti-Trump Fake News media. It is this open, brazen flaunting of an aggressive agenda to remove President Trump from office (by any means necessary) that has convinced millions of Americans there is indeed a “Deep State” cabal operating behind the scenes, and they are indeed attempting a coup. One of the main questions in many minds is: If they fail to drive Trump from office by a “soft coup” (impeachment, scandals, Mueller probe, etc.) will they resort to a “hard coup” (assassination)?
More Shoes to Fall
President Trump’s statement indicates that the Brennan revocation likely will be followed up with similar actions directed toward the Liars & Leakers Club of former intel and DOJ officials. “As part of this review,” he said “I am evaluating action with respect to the following individuals: James Clapper, James Comey, Michael Hayden, Sally Yates, Susan Rice, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and Bruce Ohr.”
Predictable Press Response
It should have come as a surprise to no one that the response from the press pool at the briefing would be to view the president’s action as some sort of Stalinist attack on the First Amendment. Here is the first question out of the starting blocks:
Q. Sarah, first, I’ve got a question I wanted to ask you. But first, just to follow up on that, it seems like everybody that you mentioned has been a political critic of the President. Is he going after his political opponents with this?
Here is the next question from the next “journalist”:
Q. Hey, Sarah. Following up Jon’s question, how is this announcement by the President — how can Americans not interpret that as a “getting back against his critics”? And isn’t it also an attempt to curtail their freedom of speech by penalizing them for being critical on television?
So it continued with a number of additional reporters. This is simply a variation on the charges leveled by the press regarding the president’s ongoing feud with the “Fake News” media over his “enemy of the American people” quote. In his now-famous tweet of February 17, 2017, he commented: “The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!”
Note that he very specifically named particular organizations as Fake News and the enemy; he did not attack the First Amendment, the free press, or the media in general. But it clearly benefits the Fake News culprits involved to have the American people falsely believe the president’s condemnation of the conduct of specific organizations is really aimed at the press in general, and at the rights of all Americans.
It should be obvious even to the rationally challenged (and constitutionally ignorant) members of the fourth estate that removing the security clearances of people who are no longer in active service, and who have been caught abusing their privileges, in no way violates their free speech. Members of the intelligence community have no life-long entitlement to have access to our nation’s most closely guarded secrets, especially when they have demonstrated ample grounds for revoking that access. President Trump is not preventing them from venting their bile on CNN, PBS, NBC, NPR, or the dozens of other major platforms from which they regularly spout misinformation and disinformation.
However, the 24/7 anti-Trump chorus in the establishment press corps is determined to present the latest actions by the president as vindictive payback against patriotic critics. Many Americans, undoubtedly, are hoping President Trump follows up on this latest move by initiating the prosecution of the Brennan-Clapper-Comey gang and their loyal Deep State minions. Unless they are held to account, the lying, leaking, treachery, and treason of the D.C. swamp creatures will continue, and will spread with fatal results for our country.
Photo of John Brennan: AP Images
Related articles:
Trump Considers Revoking Security Clearances for Brennan and Others
Was CIA Director Brennan’s 1976 Vote for a Communist Just a Youthful Indiscretion?
Deep State-Fake News Marriage: CIA, NSA, FBI Operatives Join Media In Droves
The Russia Collusion Suspect Nobody’s Talking About: CrowdStrike’s Dmitri Alperovitch
