According to Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson, former CIA Director John Brennan still maintains a top secret security clearance. Carlson revealed this on the Thursday broadcast of his show “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
Back in February, Brennan, a staunch critic of President Donald Trump, was hired by MSNBC as a contributor.
Carlson argued that given Brennan’s position in the media, his security clearance could allow for him to leak sensitive information to others in the media.
Transcript as follows:
John Brennan ran the CIA under Barack Obama. Now he’s a cable news shouter, a paid analyst for MSNBC who insults Donald Trump and advocates for the Democratic Party. Brennan no longer works for the federal government in any capacity. He holds no official post. And yet, according to two sources we spoke to exclusively today, Brennan retains perhaps the most valuable asset he had in government: a top secret security clearance. This allows him to do what the rest of us can’t do: view classified government documents and, more critically, discuss classified topics with intelligence officials still in government, and then leak that information to the press.
This is an awesome power. Our intelligence agencies keep America’s most sensitive secrets. They hold highly personal information on every American. It’s terrifying to think that John Brennan still has access to any of this. Brennan is an out-of-the-closet extremist. This week he accused Donald Trump of treason, a death penalty offense. On Tuesday, he suggested it would be reasonable for intelligence agencies to conceal information from the president, which is a violation of their charter and federal law.
On Twitter, Brennan routinely makes florid threats, addressing his tweets directly to the president, like a crazy person. Earlier this year, for example, he wrote this: “When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history. America will triumph over you.” You could almost hear his fingers smashing the keyboard. Not a stable man.
Brennan is also a passionate ideologue with a documented history of dishonestly. As CIA director, he lied about spying on senate staffers and killing civilians with drone strikes. He lied about the Steele dossier. In 2010, he prevented the CIA from referring to Islamic militants as “jihadists” because, quote, “jihad is a holy struggle and a legitimate tenet of Islam.” This is not a man who should have a security clearance. We called NBC news today to ask if Brennan has revealed classified information on the air or passed it to his colleagues at the network. NBC did not respond.
But Brennan isn’t the only reckless partisan with a history of dishonesty who retains a government security clearance. James Clapper, the former Director of National Intelligence, appears to have one as well. Same with Michael Hayden, another former CIA director. Hayden recently suggested the president is carrying out a second Holocaust on the Mexican border.
In case you’re wondering how classified information winds up in the media on a near-daily basis, all of it designed to undermine the elected president and bolster the Democratic Party, now you know. You hate to think the deep state is real, that there’s a permanent government that operates independently of voters and of democracy itself. But as long as guys like this have security clearances, you’ve got to wonder.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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