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Trump just revoked former CIA Director John Brennan’s security clearance

ZiprHead said:
Mumbles said:
It's security clearance, period. For guys like Brennan, it means little. In his case, it's actually more harmful to the US than to him - he's free to blast the idiot in chief as always, but not free to help anyone in the administration using *his* expertise, assuming he would.

For the average worker, it'd mean a major career shift, at the very least. Of course, most such people don't get to go on tv or major publishing deals to begin with, so not necessarily a major deal.

All in all, petty, vindictive, and ineffective - a classic Dolt 45 move.
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Many government contractors and consultants require their employees to have clearance to do their jobs. I'm sure Keith&Co can affirm that.
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Oh,. yeah, all of us can confirm that.

Not everyone at my company has a clearance, but those without clearances can't be in certain labs, and those without permanent clearances (as opposed to interim) can't hold certain positions. I'm between two business trips which require four different paperwork shuffles to be sure I have the clearance to get into the buildings I need to conduct business in.

Someone like Brennan might get a job that values his experiences for insights into past events, but without a clearance, he could not be briefed on new developments. And while he may know classified information that would apply to a question they might ask, he could not be in the room with himself while he discloses this information to people who need to know it.
 
Keith&Co. said:
funinspace said:
It is kind of impressive how this trivial story/sideshow is getting so much attention. This revoking is irrelevant.
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I have to disagree. Yes, the EFFECT of pulling the clearance is trivial for this individual. but the story is not.
Trump is using the power of his office to, as you point out, be a childish little bitch. He's not above throwing ANYTHING HE CAN at a critic, just because he's been butthurt, and no one in his corner is tempering his tantrum.
No one is saying, 'This would be beneath you, sir,' and no one outside of his corner his reining him in.

I don't think it's getting anywhere near enough attention.

This would be like Nixon's blacklist, except Trump just doesn't have the attention span to maintain a list. He whines, he reacts, next bitch.
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This. And unlike Nixon's list (anyone remember how Obama had a list too?), Trump has made his list very public.

This isn't a Banana Republic, so we have a higher bar of what is deemed appropriate. No, Brennan wasn't fed into a wood chipper or 'disappeared'. However, he was targeted for comments he made regarding Trump's very unusual (unprecedented) actions in a press conference with Vladimir Putin... after being in a secret meeting with the Russian leader and then came to the US to ask whether we could let Eastern Ukraine vote for "independence" and let Russia interview former US Diplomats. Brennan noted that this was particular wrong... and he would be right.

So the former head of the CIA is being targeted for saying "The President be naked!" And this is unforgivable and, in my opinion, impeachable for the grossly unethical silencing of people that served this nation for political gain.
 
Jimmy Higgins said:
SLD said:
This isn’t about Brennan. It’s a message. Criticize Trump and you lose your clearance. That means for most people their livelihoods. Without a clearance they can go work at Walmart. Losing a clearance is a big deal.
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I think the message will be complete with the quick and swift pardon of Paul Manafort.

And the GOP will continue to look down at their shoes, the spineless fuckers.
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Ya think? I'll be mildly surprised if it plays out that way. Cheato pardons Manafort, Manny loses 5th amendment protection and ends up in front of a Grand Jury. Nothing good for Cheato can come of that.
No, I think this stupid move is just a tool that Trump has taken out of his dwindling toolbox, to distract again from Russia, Omarosa etc.
 
The orange occupant of the White House was getting hysterical and downright apoplectic with the Omarosa news, so he had to change it.

Mr. Brennan has an excellent op-ed piece in the NYT this morning.
 
That's not necessarily how it will play out.

In Iran-Contra, the investigator made a deal with Oliver North and the other one whose name I cannot remember, that they would get full immunity in exchange for their testimony. He thought they were going to spill the beans on Reagan. Once they had full immunity they came to the stand and said "we did it, Reagan wasn't involved at all" and there wasn't anything that could be done because they had immunity.
 
starwater said:
The orange occupant of the White House was getting hysterical and downright apoplectic with the Omarosa news, so he had to change it.

Mr. Brennan has an excellent op-ed piece in the NYT this morning.
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From the first paragraph of the op-ed:
When Alexander Bortnikov, the head of Russia’s internal security service, told me during an early August 2016 phone call that Russia wasn’t interfering in our presidential election, I knew he was lying. Over the previous several years I had grown weary of Mr. Bortnikov’s denials of Russia’s perfidy — about its mistreatment of American diplomats and citizens in Moscow, its repeated failure to adhere to cease-fire agreements in Syria and its paramilitary intervention in eastern Ukraine, to name just a few issues.
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Sounds like the posters here dealing with Barbos.
 
Reagan was not corupt, at least mot in the Trump sense. Reagan's patriotism was real.

I rember a clip of Reagan being asked about a woman in his admin speaking out on women's rights appernetly conflicting with some aspect of policy. He responded 'I'd question her loyalty'.

Presidents require a degree of loyalty to functio, same with any leadershipn. Trump is carrying it to an extreme, and doing it overtky. He is a cornered rabid animal tearing and biting anything around him.
 
Juma said:
SLD said:
This is one big step on the road to autocracy. Critics of the President lose their rights to a security clearance and with it, their right to a livelihood. Despicable.

This should cause riots in D.C. but it won’t. People are clueless as to what this means. Security clearances have never been the subject of political support. There is actually a whole body of law about this, and this is blatantly against the First Amendment. But I suspect the vast majority of people will yawn and say so what.

SLD
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I’m not pro Trump but please tell me how revoking the white house security clearance means that they loose ”their right to a livelihood”?
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Well, to add to what others have said, havinga security clearance is a big deal. People in Brennan's position often get senior posts at major government contractors. They pay big, big bucks for that. But they require a clearance. Perhaps Brennan will be able to make a good living without it since he’s well known. But this is a message to many others out there. Play ball with Trump. Support him or else. It’s effectively the establishment of the Fuhrer-prinzip. Government employees are supposed to take a oath to the Constitution. Now however, they must support Trump, or they lose their clearance. It is. A serious step on the road to autocracy.

SLD
 
SLD said:
Juma said:
SLD said:
This is one big step on the road to autocracy. Critics of the President lose their rights to a security clearance and with it, their right to a livelihood. Despicable.

This should cause riots in D.C. but it won’t. People are clueless as to what this means. Security clearances have never been the subject of political support. There is actually a whole body of law about this, and this is blatantly against the First Amendment. But I suspect the vast majority of people will yawn and say so what.

SLD
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I’m not pro Trump but please tell me how revoking the white house security clearance means that they loose ”their right to a livelihood”?
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Well, to add to what others have said, havinga security clearance is a big deal. People in Brennan's position often get senior posts at major government contractors. They pay big, big bucks for that. But they require a clearance. Perhaps Brennan will be able to make a good living without it since he’s well known. But this is a message to many others out there. Play ball with Trump. Support him or else. It’s effectively the establishment of the Fuhrer-prinzip. Government employees are supposed to take a oath to the Constitution. Now however, they must support Trump, or they lose their clearance. It is. A serious step on the road to autocracy.

SLD
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He can get a clearnce to do clasified work at a company. Trump removed his clearance to prevent acess to information on the probe.

In industry you need a clearance plus a need to know specific info. His level of clearance allowed him wide access to probably all classified information. I had a clearance in the 80s at Lockheed. I did not have access to anything outside my programs.
 
We have a spoiled-rotten 8-year-old as President. His enablers -- the GOP + 40% of the electorate -- are like the deluded parents of this 8-year-old. I used to deal with this kind of parent when I taught school. Our boy can do no wrong. You say he's swearing in school and bullying the others? You say he cheated the kids out of their lunch money and uses racial slurs? That he pinches the girls in the drinking fountain line (my elementary school analogy for 'grab 'em by the pussy!!') You're like all the other teachers, you're prejudiced against our boy. Those kids are lying about him. Unfair!! Our Donny has to defend himself against kids like that. And your principal -- threatening him with detention??? She should get the detention. Lock her up!! Lock her up!!!!
 
There could possibly be an answer to this that doesn't contain treason.

CNN 7/23/18 said:
President Donald Trump is considering stripping a half-dozen former national security officials of their security clearances, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Monday, calling their public commentary about the ongoing Russia probe inappropriate.

Such a move would amount to an unprecedented use of presidential authority to punish political rivals. Critics quickly seized on the announcement, even as those under consideration downplayed the actual effect losing their clearances might have.

The list of former officials under consideration includes former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former FBI Director James Comey, former national security adviser Susan Rice, former deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe and former National Security Agency Director Michael Hayden, according to Sanders.
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This is a day before the Russian Tweet, and the Russian Tweet indicates everyone lost their clearance. Trump then acts on this with Brennan, who was the absolutely most vocal against Trump after the Putin double anal Summit.

But to step back a moment, I don't believe we know whether or not the others have lost their clearance or whether they are allowed to say it, without the White House leaking it.
 
CNN 7/23/18 said:
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Monday, calling their public commentary about the ongoing Russia probe inappropriate
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Quadruplespeak. Doublespeak squared.
 
steve_bank said:
SLD said:
Well, to add to what others have said, havinga security clearance is a big deal. People in Brennan's position often get senior posts at major government contractors. They pay big, big bucks for that. But they require a clearance. Perhaps Brennan will be able to make a good living without it since he’s well known. But this is a message to many others out there. Play ball with Trump. Support him or else. It’s effectively the establishment of the Fuhrer-prinzip. Government employees are supposed to take a oath to the Constitution. Now however, they must support Trump, or they lose their clearance. It is. A serious step on the road to autocracy.

SLD
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He can get a clearnce to do clasified work at a company. Trump removed his clearance to prevent acess to information on the probe.

In industry you need a clearance plus a need to know specific info. His level of clearance allowed him wide access to probably all classified information. I had a clearance in the 80s at Lockheed. I did not have access to anything outside my programs.
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No. Once his clearance is revoked, it’s gone. He cannot work on any government contract that requires a security clearance. It can be restored but since the removal was due to a presidential order, it would require another one to get back.

There is some legal authority to challenge the removal in court, but that’s very, very limited.

SLD
 
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