Thursday on MSNBC, former CIA Director John Brennan said he is “aghast” at President Donald Trump abusing his authority to corrupt the government as a despot would.
Brennan said, “I think our country is in very serious trouble. When you have such blatant political corruption at the highest levels of the U.S. government, something I never thought I would see in my lifetime, but when you have an administration, White House, the attorney general, the acting head of the intelligence community all acting in concert to try to advance the personal interests of Mr. Trump and to misrepresent the facts and abuse the authorities within the intelligence community and in the law enforcement community in order to continue to perpetrate this egregious abuse of authority on the American people, which is what it is—I think this is very, very serious.”
He continued, “In my tweet, I mentioned that Mr. Trump is playing by a despot’s playbook, and I really believe that. Despots do anything to obtain power and do anything possible to retain power, and that means undercutting enemies and adversaries and co-opting government, the judicial system, law enforcement and intelligence and security services. We see that right now, playing out in our own country. Again, I am aghast at what I’m seeing here when I witnessed this around the globe over the last several decades. Until Mr. Trump came into the White House, we never, ever had this type of egregious abuse of the instruments of government and the instruments of our intelligence and national security organizations that keep this country strong and safe. The fact that they’re being manipulated and exploited by individuals who don’t have the principles that are needed to lead our great country, I really am very worried about what’s going to happen in the coming months.”
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