US President Donald Trump on Wednesday revoked the security clearance of one of his most vocal critics – former Central Intelligence Agency director John Brennan – and indicated that other critics from previous administrations could face the same action.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the head of the executive branch and commander-in-chief, I have a unique constitutional responsibility to protect the nation\u2019s classified information, including by controlling access to it. I have decided to revoke the security clearance of John Brennan, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency,\u201d Trump said in a statement read out by White House press secretary Sarah Sanders.<\/p>\n
Trump said Brennan had displayed \u201cerratic conduct and behavior\u201d, misled Congress on accessing staffs\u2019 computer and made \u201ca series of unfounded and outrageous allegations — wild outbursts on the Internet and television — about this administration\u201d.<\/p>\n
Undeterred by the White House announcement, Brennan tweeted, \u201cThis action is part of a broader effort by Mr. Trump to suppress freedom of speech & punish critics. It should gravely worry all Americans, including intelligence professionals, about the cost of speaking out. My principles are worth far more than clearances. I will not relent.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier, Brennan had called Trump\u2019s performance at his joint news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin \u201ctreasonous\u201d and that \u201cNot only were Trump\u2019s comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin\u201d.<\/p>\n
Others who could face a similar action include former director of national intelligence and country\u2019s top spy James Clapper, former national security adviser Susan rice, former FBI director James Comey and deputy attorney general Sally Yates, all Obama appointees; and Michael Hayden CIA director from the Bush administration.<\/p>\n
Also on the list are former FBI official Andrew McCave, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page and, a currently serving official, Bruce Ohr, all of whom have had some role to play in Special Counsel Robert Mueller\u2019s ongoing investigation into Russian interference in US polls in 2016 and the Trump campaign\u2019s possible collusion.<\/p>\n
Security clearances are extended to officials from previous administrations to enable to continue to interact with their successors and share their knowledge and expertise with them.<\/p>\n
There are nearly 4.1 million people with security clearance currently, 1.3 million of them with top security clearance, according to an official report cited by US media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US President Donald Trump on Wednesday revoked the security clearance of one of his most vocal critics – former Central Intelligence Agency director John Brennan – and indicated that other critics from previous administrations could face the same action. \u201cAs the head of the executive branch and commander-in-chief, I have a unique constitutional responsibility to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39415"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39417,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39415\/revisions\/39417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}