They won’t say so out loud for fear of retribution from the Deep State, but senior intel officials believe the security clearances of James Clapper and John Brennan need to be revoked immediately.
Lee Smith of Real Clear Investigations looked into the matter and was able to get officials to speak off the record and they seemed to think that the two were a risk, especially since they both now work for CNN. The officials made no bones about why the clearances must be lifted. They say that Obama and his intel chiefs weaponized intelligence and they are probably still at it and they should not have access to our nation’s secrets because they would leak sensitive material to gain a political edge.
Via Lee Smith of Real Clear Investigations:
President Trump has been criticized for politicizing the intelligence community by threatening to strip the security clearances of former top officials including John Brennan and James Clapper. But numerous past and present senior intelligence officials say the Obama administration started that politicization — and revoking the clearances of those who abuse the privilege for partisan purposes may help right the ship.
“As is often the case with the Trump administration, the rollout of the policy is bad, but the idea driving the policy is sound,” said one senior intelligence official who, like others interviewed for this article, spoke to RealClearInvestigations only on condition of anonymity. “Under some Obama-era intelligence chiefs, intelligence was used as a political weapon. We need to root that out, not reward it.”
Some sources say former CIA director Brennan, ex-director of national intelligence Clapper and others with security clearances were emboldened to pursue political agendas through the anti-Trump media in a climate of impunity created by the Justice Department’s failure to prosecute leaks attending Donald Trump’s election. Notable among the leaks, they said, was a top unnamed official’s “unmasking” of Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn in a January 2017 Washington Post column by David Ignatius, sourced to classified intercepts of Flynn’s contacts with the Russian ambassador. Leaking such classified information is a felony.
“The very people who are now talking the most know the details of how the Flynn intercept was leaked,” a senior U.S. official told RealClearInvestigations. “They wouldn’t be out talking like that if they’d been interviewed by the FBI.” The Department of Justice declined to comment.
These inside people know Clapper and Brennan best and they don’t trust them, so why should you?