Senator Rand Paul continued his efforts to stop “unhinged” former CIA Director John Brennan, calling on President Trump to revoke his still active security clearance.
Paul questioned whether or not the Obama administration’s head of the CIA has been cashing in on that clearance by using it to share secrets with the mainstream media.
Brennan has been a consistent contributor to both NBC News and MSNBC since February, though Paul did not name any specific instances in which he may have divulged secrets in his role as an analyst for the networks.
He plans to meet with President Trump on Monday to discuss having Brennan’s clearance revoked.
Is John Brennan monetizing his security clearance? Is John Brennan making millions of dollars divulging secrets to the mainstream media with his attacks on @realDonaldTrump ?
— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) July 23, 2018
Today I will meet with the President and I will ask him to revoke John Brennan’s security clearance!
— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) July 23, 2018
Senator Paul’s request comes as congressional Republicans have been openly discussing the possibility of having Brennan testify about his role in launching the Trump-Russia investigation.
“Mr. Brennan has taken credit for launching the Trump investigation,” the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, adding he “took the lead on shaping the narrative that Russia was interfering in the election specifically to help Mr. Trump—which quickly evolved into the Trump-collusion narrative.”
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte said that his committee will call Brennan to testify on Capitol Hill citing their curiosity about his “extreme bias” and what role it played in starting up the investigation.
BIG question for John Brennan, who has become such a vocal spokesman. Did you receive any secret info on candidate Trump or his campaign from European or British intelligence sources? Brennan should be brought before Congress & made to testify under oath, NOW!
— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) June 7, 2018
“This is an extremely disturbing thing to see both he and James Comey, supposedly impartial government officials carrying out their jobs in very important areas in intelligence gathering and law enforcement, expressing the kind of extreme bias that they’ve shown now — which I think reflects quite accurately what they were doing back in 2016,” Goodlatte said.
That bias now includes charges that the President, by virtue of his comments about the intelligence community at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, had somehow committed treason.
Donald Trump’s press conference performance in Helsinki rises to & exceeds the threshold of “high crimes & misdemeanors.” It was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were Trump’s comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin. Republican Patriots: Where are you???
— John O. Brennan (@JohnBrennan) July 16, 2018
Paul immediately leaped to Trump’s defense, saying “This is coming from the guy who voted for the Communist Party USA candidate in 1976. Give me a break.”
He followed that up by blasting Brennan as “the most biased, bigoted, over-the-top, hyperbolic sort of unhinged director of the CIA we’ve ever had.” (RELATED: Rand Paul Defends Trump, Slams ‘Completely Unhinged’ CIA Director).
Aside from seeking to have his security credentials revoked, Paul has also questioned why Brennan is still allowed to collect a government pension.
“It makes me wonder whether he should be getting a government pension if he’s going to be disrespecting the commander-in-chief, calling the president treasonous,” the senator said in an interview with Tucker Carlson. “That’s about as overtop as you can imagine.”
