White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders made a surprising announcement from the podium Monday, saying President Trump is considering revoking security clearance from six former U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials: former CIA Director John Brennan, former DNI James Clapper, former CIA and NSA Director General Michael Hayden, former FBI Director James Comey, former National Security Advisor Susan Rice, and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.
Watch:
DNI Clapper and General Hayden are members of CIR's Advisory Board.
All named either have been outspoken critics of the president's national security decisions or have been involved in the Russia investigation in some capacity, indicating removing clearances would be nothing more than political retribution.
The threat against Brennan and former senior U.S. officials James Comey, James Clapper, Michael Hayden, Susan Rice and Andrew McCabe represented an extraordinary politicization of the U.S. government’s security clearance process.
(...)
Many former U.S. officials retain their security clearances after they leave government service because they continue to advise their former agencies or because it is a condition of employment as government contractors or consultants. Stripping the clearances also represents a public rebuke of the officials and severs a connection with the intelligence community.
(...)
Trump came under a torrent of criticism after Helsinki, including from many lawmakers in his own Republican party. One of the few who publicly sided with him last week, Senator Rand Paul, said he met with Trump on Monday and asked him to revoke Brennan’s security clearance.
Clapper called the possibility of stripping the security clearances “just a very, very petty thing to do.”
“There is a formal process for doing this, but you know I guess legally the president has that prerogative,” Clapper said on CNN. “He can suspend or revoke clearances as he sees fit, and if he chooses to do it for political reasons, well I think that’s a terrible precedent. And it’s a very sad commentary. And it’s an abuse of the system.”
Hayden, a retired four-star Air Force general, said he was unbowed.
“I don’t go back for classified briefings,” he wrote on Twitter. “Won’t have any effect on what I say or write.”
Comey has not had a security clearance for a year, and McCabe, according to his spokeswoman, lost his clearance when he was terminated from the FBI in March.
Some Democrats criticized the proposal as a deflection tactic to change the conversation around what Trump may have agreed with Putin in their two-hour, one-on-one meeting.
“This is absolute nonsense, and we shouldn’t fall for it,” said Rachel Cohen, spokeswoman for Senator Mark Warner, the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. “In this country, we don’t punish people for exercising their First Amendment rights,” referring to the constitutional provision protecting free speech.
The New York Times' Astead Wesley points out the source of the idea Sanders announced.
Striking at critics, Trump threatens former officials' security clearances (Reuters)