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Home » Brennan’s security clearance revoked

Brennan’s security clearance revoked

The New Neo Posted on by

Good. The only bad part about the news is that it gives Brennan the golden opportunity to be in the limelight again, and to fume against Trump—his favorite position and his favorite occupation.

I really don’t question this decision of Trump’s, which is one of those overdetermined moves:

“Erratic” properly describes [Brenna’s] shrill and often mindless attacks on Trump. Moreover, his hatred of the president is so palpable that one can easily imagine him using access to secret information to harm the administration.

To be sure words like “erratic,” “shrill,” “mindless,” and “hatred” are not objective terms…

However, in Brennan’s case, objective factors also support Trump’s decision. Brennan was caught lying about breaking into the computers of Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s staff. And, reportedly, he’s in jeopardy with the House Intelligence Committee for lying to Congress about the anti-Trump dossier that collection of falsehoods gathered by partisans for partisan purposes. Indeed, Brennan appears to have played a significant role in promoting the dossier as a weapon to be used against Donald Trump.

A guy like that really ought not have a security clearance…

Brennan, of course, is talking about how his freedom of speech is being curtailed as he gives interviews about the subject of how intimidating this could be. Well, he doesn’t seem at all intimidated and it probably wouldn’t intimidate most people who are no longer in jobs that require such clearance. It also might serve notice to subsequent heads of the CIA or ex-heads of the CIA not to leak or to lie, or to demonstrate extreme partisanship and animus against a president, and still expect to get access to sensitive and confidential information (after retiring) that they will then try to use to destroy that president. Works for me, no matter who the president might be. No president owes such people anything at that point. And they remain perfectly free to talk.

But there’s another factor regarding Brennan and his clearance, one I discussed at some length in this previous post, which can be summarized as the fact that I think Brennan should never have gotten a security clearance from the CIA in the first place, much less become head of that organization.

I also believe—as I wrote in this post—that former officials should not automatically retain their security clearances after leaving office.

Comments

Brennan’s security clearance revoked — 29 Comments

  1. By Brennan’s own admission, he thought he was going to flunk his lie detector exam. Not because he lied, but because he admitted to providing material support to a communist in the U.S. when he voted for him in a presidential election.

    But hey, this type of behavior is now considered “patriotic” in Democrat party circles.

  2. Why the CIA would hire someone who had voted for the CPUSA presidential candidate in 1976 is beyond my comprehension.

  3. Gringo the CIA has ALWAYS been very left of center. That’s why the DoD established its own intelligence service so many years ago.

    The CIA, from the first, always thought of itself as the ‘correct’ kind of Bolshevism.

    That’s why Barry Soetoro’s entire (White) family fit in with the CIA, and why Barry’s first job after college was with a known CIA front company. ( He goofed off there, of course. ) The front was a publisher of economic facts for every nation on Earth, which is the heart and soul of the CIA from its OSS roots.

    Remember that the OSS selected the strategic targets in Nazi occupied Europe. It did so based upon the financial packages that Wall Street had assembled that paid for those major factories. Yes, Wall Street had a piece of every significant manufacturing plant in Europe. For such plants invariably had American technology embedded within them. ( oil refineries, rubber plants, power stations, assembly lines, radio tubes, electric anything ) Ivy League professors worked down the list, sorting out the most critical to the Nazi war machine.

    Its other wartime function was the weekly national intelligence assessment. This was launched for WWII — and is still published. It’s circulated extremely tightly… to say the least.

    So it’s no wonder that Barry used the CIA to run his wars… and Brennan is his Luca Brasi.

  4. Someone tell me that I did not see an article about Brennan converting to Islam, and that he speaks Arabic.

    A bad dream on my part?

    Whose side is he on?

  6. Someone tell me that I did not see an article about Brennan converting to Islam, and that he speaks Arabic.

    Richard: I’ve seen an article or two on that as well. But if so, I doubt Brennan has any faith in Allah or Islam. He just instinctively sides with American’s enemies.

  7. Richard, Brennan is portrayed in the film Zero Dark Thirty on his knees on his carpet praying to Mecca. He is the Deputy Director of the CIA in 2011. In that role, Brennan was the COO of the CIA, Mr. Inside the organization. Barry bumped him up in 2013 to top dog.

    I’ve seen him at the lecturn speaking in Arabic.

    As a convert, you KNOW he has a Muslim name; it’s just not public knowledge.

    At a fundamental level, Brennan has ALWAYS been against America’s heritage, hence his 1976 vote for the CPUSA.

  8. Brennan and the CIA presided over the annihilation of the CIA’s agents in China.

    Current and former American officials described the intelligence breach as one of the worst in decades. It set off a scramble in Washington’s intelligence and law enforcement agencies to contain the fallout, but investigators were bitterly divided over the cause. Some were convinced that a mole within the C.I.A. had betrayed the United States. Others believed that the Chinese had hacked the covert system the C.I.A. used to communicate with its foreign sources. Years later, that debate remains unresolved.

    Hmmm. Who could that mole be ?

  9. When you open your mouth and coherent sounds emanate, or when you think and your thoughts are transcribed and published, that is speech. Has his mouth been taped shut? Has he been deplatformed?

    Have his vocal chords been cut with a scalpel? Has his brain been liquefied? Has he been disarmed, decapitated, and forgotten?

    The person doth protest too much.

  10. When Americans are intimidated by the DS, they go find another country to live in or fake their own death. Look up a person named Edward Snowden. The other whistle blowers didn’t get out of the country alive.

  11. Don’t understand why the clearance doesn’t go with the job. In my years in the Navy my clearance went up and down depending on the job I was in. Confidential to Secret to Top Secret and back down when I no longer had “the need to know.”

    Seems it should be the same for top government officials. When the director of the CIA leaves service, his clearance should lapse unless the government desires that he be consulted on classified matters of national security. It should not be an automatic thing that he retains his clearance. Each case should be considered separately.

    I found Top Secret clearance to be a burden. I was always aware that if I screwed up the handling of materials or misspoke, I could end up in the brig. Unlike HRC, I was not “special.”

  14. Someone tell me that I did not see an article about Brennan converting to Islam, and that he speaks Arabic.

    I think the Muslim convert your thinking of is the former head of the CIA’s Counter­terrorism Center. He worked under Brennan and directed the hunt for Bin Laden:

    …the CTC chief came to be regarded as an Ahab-like figure known for dark suits and a darker demeanor. He could be merciless toward subordinates but was also revered for his knowledge of terrorist networks and his ability to run an organization that became almost an agency unto itself. He embodied a killing-centric approach to counter­terrorism that enraged many Muslims, even though he is a convert to Islam.

    As far as I know, he remains anonymous. So maybe that’s the reason some people think Brennan himself converted. Either way, sounds like one bad-ass dude.

  15. For J.J. and others, a distinction between “having your clearance revoked” and “being ‘read out’ and no longer having access”.

    I have left my last position which required a clearance. I was ‘read out’ and therefore no longer have a “need to know”. So, I don’t have any legitimate access to classified. If someone gave me classified, they would be in trouble because – by definition – I no longer have one component required: the need to know.

    However, my clearance is still active. It will remain so until the time period for my background investigation expires. If I get another job that requires clearance, I will not have to be re-investigated, and can jump right in and start work.

    If someone *revokes* my clearance, OTOH, I will have to go through the whole clearance investigation again, with the added difficulty that someone revoked my previous clearance. That’s a black mark on my record. (In fact, if you put in a job application for a position that requires a clearance, a question that you will *always* be asked is “Have you ever had your clearance revoked or suspended?” You can have it suspended for doing something bone-headed, while they investigate to see if it was bone-headed or bad.)
    Normal people never have their clearance revoked when they simply leave a position requiring it.

    Brennan (and all the others) should have been ‘read out’ when they left*. Which means they have no access to classified without re-doing the paperwork for that particular program (a NDA and such).
    But revoking their clearance means they were bad boys and they really shouldn’t ever have access again (unless they’ve turned over a new leaf or something – yeah, right).

    (* The real issue, I think, is not that these folks retain their clearances, but that they aren’t even ‘read out’. Their NDA and other paperwork is considered still active. The paperwork process for anything Top Secret and below is mostly a formality for those who take the whole thing seriously, so I don’t know why you wouldn’t read them out when they leave.)

  16. What’s the big deal? President Manning can restore his clearance someday.

    Thanks. That’s the only good laugh I expect to have today.

  17. As far as having any affect on an individual’s freedom of speech, possessing a security clearance does not enhance your freedom of speech, it reduces it. Unless you wish to lose your clearance and do time, you are not free to share classified information other than with cleared persons who have a need to know and are within a SCIF. I’m sure none of Mr. Brennan’s fellow pundits on MSNBC have a clearance and they speak perfectly freely.

  18. GWB, thanks for defining the differences between being read out and having the clearance revoked. Excellent points. I knew that, but I retired from the Navy in 1975. (43 years ago – oh my.) My memory isn’t all that it was at one time.

  19. GWB on August 17, 2018 at 8:30 am at 8:30 am said:
    For J.J. and others, a distinction between “having your clearance revoked” and “being ‘read out’ and no longer having access”.

    Tim on August 17, 2018 at 10:30 am at 10:30 am said:
    As far as having any affect on an individual’s freedom of speech, possessing a security clearance does not enhance your freedom of speech, it reduces it.
    * * *
    Thanks for the clarifications.
    The pundits are, in some ways, more protected than the leakers, so Brennan is trying to get the best of both worlds.
    Just listened to some NPR pontificating on how Treasonous Tyrannical Trump was being a big ol’ meanie to poor beleagured Brennan — not one mention of his lying history.
    NPR delenda est.

    PS I wanted to say that NPR was white-washing Brennan, but that’s probably raciss these days, so I am going to use the term “spin-washing” from now on.

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  21. Manju on August 17, 2018 at 5:45 am at 5:45 am said:
    Someone tell me that I did not see an article about Brennan converting to Islam, and that he speaks Arabic.

    I think the Muslim convert your thinking of is the former head of the CIA’s Counter­terrorism Center. He worked under Brennan and directed the hunt for Bin Laden:
    …
    As far as I know, he remains anonymous. So maybe that’s the reason some people think Brennan himself converted. Either way, sounds like one bad-ass dude.
    * * *
    WaPo wouldn’t let me read the post at your link, so I went here instead, which seems to just be a “reprint” of the WaPo article, with citation.

    https://fortunascorner.com/2015/03/26/architect-of-cias-drone-campaign-to-leave-post-in-watershed-moment/

    FWIW, this is the full WaPo URL title, which is identical to HuffPo’s (which just links to the WaPo); I could not find any other references on Googles 1st page.

    washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/architect-of-cias-drone-campaign-to-leave-post-in-watershed-moment-for-agency/

    .huffingtonpost.com/entry/architect-of-cias-drone

    Coordinating, or just lazy headliners? At least it makes it easy to track provenance.

    Here is a much more descriptive article about the Agent, from when he was still the hero not the has-been, including why he converted to Islam (married a Muslim woman); he doesn’t seem to think that should prevent him from killing other Muslims, though, if they are part of al-Qaeda or ISIS. Very interesting person.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/at-cia-a-convert-to-islam-leads-the-terrorism-hunt/2012/03/23/gIQA2mSqYS_story.html?utm_term=.9757c2d148a9

    There was a lot of chit-chat in the media back-in-the-day on why Brennan removed him from his post, when he was accomplishing so much in degrading ISIS and AQ but speculation on motives is rather pointless at this remove.

  22. PS – the “bad-ass dude” is back in business.

    https://www.newsweek.com/cia-iran-chief-michael-dandrea-osama-bin-laden-619912

    Wiki has everything you want to know, since Newsweek slapped a slow-burn-lock on me before I could copy anything. Brennan dropped him in 2015; Trump (at Pompeo’s recommnedation) brought him back in spring of 2017.

    Speculation on motives gearing up…

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D%27Andrea

    The Nation wasn’t happy about the appointment, big surprise.
    WaPo was peeved that the NYT blew D’Andrea’s cover, after they went to such pains to protect him in their own articles (good on them, by the way, as this guy has to have a #1-target on his head from the jihadis.)

  24. Senator agrees with Dyer’s post above.

    https://www.burr.senate.gov/press/releases/statement-from-senate-intel-chairman-richard-burr-on-comments-by-former-cia-director-john-brennan-

    WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Senator Richard Burr (R-NC), Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, issued the following statement on comments made in The New York Times by former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) John Brennan:

    “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 still leading the CIA, why didn’t he include it in the Intelligence Community Assessment released in 2017? If his statement is based on intelligence he has seen since leaving office, it constitutes an intelligence breach. If he has some other personal knowledge of or evidence of collusion, it should be disclosed to the Special Counsel, not The New York Times.

    “If, however, Director Brennan’s statement is purely political and based on conjecture, the president has full authority to revoke his security clearance as head of the Executive Branch.”

  26. The only bad part about the news

    The New York times is news?

    That’s new to me. One would have better luck bashing their head into a concrete wall for obtaining knowledge.

  27. Those who defended Freedom by killing OBL deserve our utmost respect.

    Yeah, well Adm. Whathisface gave a character reference for a man who ran a spying operation on Congress, then lied about it.

  28. Considering all of criminal conduct that Brennan has (charitably) been accused of – multiple lying to Congress charges, spying on US citizens, breaking into Senate computers, etc, etc, etc, I’m considering that his behavior is a case of “the best defense is a good offense”.

    Making himself a blatantly partisan opponent will allow him the defense that he’s being persecuted.

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