'McCarthy-era tactics': ex-spy chiefs round on Trump in Brennan row

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/17/mccarthy-era-tactics-ex-spy-chiefs-round-on-trump-in-brennan-row

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More than a dozen senior intelligence officials, including the retired navy admiral who oversaw the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, have heavily criticised Donald Trump, accusing him of trying to stifle free speech in revoking the security clearance of former spy chief John Brennan.

Writing in the Washington Post, William H McRaven, who presided over the Bin Laden raid, called Trump’s moves “McCarthy-era tactics” and said he would “consider it an honor” if Trump revoked his clearance as well.

“Like most Americans, I had hoped that when you became president, you would rise to the occasion and become the leader this great nation needs,” he wrote. “A good leader tries to embody the best qualities of his or her organization. A good leader sets the example for others to follow. A good leader always puts the welfare of others before himself or herself.

“Your leadership, however, has shown little of these qualities. Through your actions, you have embarrassed us in the eyes of our children, humiliated us on the world stage and, worst of all, divided us as a nation.”

McRaven also praised Brennan as “a man of unparalleled integrity, whose honesty and character have never been in question, except by those who don’t know him”.

“Director Brennan’s recent statements purport to know as fact that the Trump campaign colluded with a foreign power. If Director Brennan’s statement is based on intelligence he received while leading the CIA, why didn’t he include it in the Intelligence Community Assessment......

It came after Brennan called Trump’s repeated denials that his campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 election “hogwash” and accused the president of revoking his security clearance as part of a “desperate” attempt to interfere with the special counsel’s investigation.

The criticism was followed late on Thursday by a joint letter from 12 former senior intelligence officials calling Trump’s action “ill-considered and unprecedented”. They said it “has nothing to do with who should and should not hold security clearances – and everything to do with an attempt to stifle free speech”.

The signatories included six former CIA directors, five former deputy directors and former director of national intelligence James Clapper. Two of them – Clapper and former CIA director Michael Hayden – have appeared on a list of people whose security clearance the White House has publicly threatened to remove.

Trump on Wednesday openly tied his decision to strip Brennan of his clearance – and threaten nearly a dozen other former and current officials – to the investigation into Russian election meddling and possible collusion with his campaign. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Trump again called the probe a “rigged witch hunt” and said “These people led it!”

“So I think it’s something that had to be done,” he said.

The president’s comments were a swift departure from the official explanation given by the White House earlier on Wednesday that cited the “the risks” posed by Brennan’s alleged “erratic conduct and behavior”.

Attorneys said the revocation appeared to be within the president’s authority. But they noted the power play also could be used to reinforce a case alleging obstruction of justice, following the president’s firing of former FBI director James Comey and his repeated tweets calling for the investigation to end.

Patrick Cotter, a former assistant US attorney in the eastern district of New York, said a prosecutor could argue Trump’s move was intended as a warning against helping the Russia investigation, but probably not obstruction in itself. However, he said the move would be a “powerful piece of evidence” for prosecutors as part of a pattern to demonstrate an intent to use presidential power in connection with the investigation.

Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor, agreed. “What it shows is that the president is fixated on the Russia investigation, he’s angry about it, and he wants to do everything he can to discourage or slow down the investigation,” he said.

Special counsel Mueller and his team have been looking at Trump’s public statements and tweets as they investigate whether the president could be guilty of obstruction. “I don’t think it advances the criminal obstruction case, but I think it’s factually relevant,” said Mark Zaid, a national security attorney. “I think it shows the state of mind and intent to interfere or impede any unfavorable discussion of his potential connection to Russia.”

Former CIA directors and other top national security officials are typically allowed to keep their clearances, at least for some period.

The initial White House statement about Brennan’s clearance made no reference to the Russia investigation. Instead, the president said he was fulfilling his “constitutional responsibility to protect the nation’s classified information,” even though he made no suggestion that Brennan was improperly exposing the nation’s secrets.

“Mr Brennan’s lying and recent conduct characterized by increasingly frenzied commentary is wholly inconsistent with access to the nations’ most closely held secrets,” Trump said.

A few hours later his explanation had changed. “You look at any of them and you see the things they’ve done,” Trump told the Journal. “In some cases they’ve lied before Congress. The Hillary Clinton whole investigation was a total sham.”

“I don’t trust many of those people on that list,” he said. “I think that they’re very duplicitous. I think they’re not good people.”

The episode was reminiscent of Trump’s shifting explanations for firing Comey and the evolving descriptions of the Trump Tower meeting between top campaign aides and a Kremlin-connected lawyer – both topics of interest to Mueller.

In announcing Comey’s firing, the White House initially cited the former FBI director’s handling of the inquiry into Clinton’s emails. A few days after Comey was dismissed Trump said he was really thinking of “this Russia thing”. Trump later changed again, tweeting that he “never fired James Comey because of Russia!”

This month he admitted in a tweet the Trump Tower meeting, which was arranged by his son Donald Trump Jr, “was a meeting to get information on an opponent”. That directly contradicted a July 2017 statement from Trump Jr – written with the consultation of the White House – that claimed the meeting had been primarily about adoption.