President Barack Obama is briefed on North Korea by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and National Security Advisor Tom Donilon during the Presidential Daily Briefing in the Oval Office, Nov. 23, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
Pat Buchanan says that revoking the security clearances of Clapper, Comey, Hayden, McCabe, Strzok, and Page would be a good start. He writes at The American Conservative (abridged):
In backing John Brennan’s right to keep his top-secret security clearance, despite his having charged the president with treason, the U.S. intel community has chosen to fight on indefensible terrain.
After Donald Trump’s Helsinki summit with Vladimir Putin, Brennan had called the president’s actions “nothing short of treasonous.”
The battle is now engaged. Trump cannot back down. He must defy and defeat the old bulls of the intel community. And he can.
The White House statement of Sarah Huckabee Sanders on John Brennan’s loss of his clearances was spot on:
“Any access granted to our nation’s secrets should be in furtherance of national, not personal, interests.
Trump is said to be evaluating pulling the security clearances of Clapper, ex-FBI Director James Comey, former CIA Director Michael Hayden, former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, former FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok and former FBI lawyer Lisa Page.
This is a good start. Some of these individuals have been fired. Some are under investigation. Some were involved in the FBI’s “get-Trump” cabal to prevent his election and then to abort his presidency.
For Trump, a truce or a negotiated peace with these people is never going to happen. But this issue of security clearances is a battlefield where the president cannot lose, if he fights wisely.
Americans sense that these are privileges that should be extended to those who protect us, not perks for former officials to exploit and monetize while they attempt to bring down the commander in chief.
Read more here.
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