By Douglas V. Gibbs
Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host
I don’t normally watch the alphabet networks or liberal left media outlets. While up north in Oregon, however, a person I am visiting is fond of NBC. During a commercial earlier in the day, yesterday, advertising the upcoming episode of the network’s NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, the host looked me in the eye through the camera lens and my television screen and said, “The president is revoking security clearances of government officials who criticize him.”
What?
If I was not politically savvy, and that was all I was hearing, I’d probably hate President Trump, too. Except, the statement was not altogether truthful. There’s more to the story than Lester Holt was revealing.
I imagined the average viewer hearing what Holt said, and thinking, “Gosh, that blankety-blank President Trump is punishing people who dare to be critical of him – what a narcissistic tyrant.”
Except, as I said earlier, that’s not entirely true.
The whole brouhaha began when White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced on Trump’s behalf that the administration would revoke Brennan’s security clearance, saying he “has a history that calls in to question his objectivity and credibility.”
“Mr. Brennan has recently leveraged his status as a former high ranking official with access to highly sensitive information to make a series of unfounded and outrageous allegations, wild outbursts on the internet and television about this administration.”
“I have a unique constitutional responsibility to protect the nation’s classified information, including by controlling access to it. Today, in fulfilling that responsibility, I have decided to revoke the security clearance of John Brennan, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency,” Trump said in the statement dictated in the White House briefing room by his press secretary Sarah Sanders. “Mr. Brennan’s lying and recent conduct characterized by increasingly frenzied commentary is wholly inconsistent with access to the nation’s most closely held secrets.”
Brennan responded by tweeting, “This action is part of a broader effort by Mr. Trump to suppress freedom of speech & punish critics. It should gravely worry all Americans, including intelligence professionals, about the cost of speaking out. My principles are worth far more than clearances. I will not relent.”
CNN reported that “The White House provided no evidence that Brennan has misused his security clearance since leaving government.”
The statement by the Trump administration was not that Brennan had misused his security clearance, but that he “leveraged his status” as a “former high ranking official with access to highly sensitive information.”
James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, said Brennan has not accessed classified information since leaving his position in January 2017. “Will the republic stand or fall on whether John (Brennan) retains his access to classified information? Of course not. The larger issue here, to me, throughout has been infringement on First Amendment rights and I think people ought to think seriously about that,” Clapper said on CNN.
As a former government official who is critical of the President of the United States, is Brennan’s free speech rights truly being interfered with if his security clearance, which he no longer needs, is revoked? There has been no law passed by Congress, or signed by the President, that says Brennan cannot say what he wants to say. The decision by the president is a matter of security. If someone says he hates the person who heads the executive branch, should that person continue to have access to classified information through the executive branch after he no longer works for said branch of government?
That said, current officials are also being considered when it comes to the security clearance revocation plans of the administration. Trump has announced that he plans to revoke the clearance for Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr, for example.
However, the average hard-left Democrat Hillary voter isn’t hearing that side of the story. They are not being exposed to the full context of the issue, and are instead being told that the tyrant in the White House is taking actions to silence criticism without consulting anyone by yanking their security clearances. Hey, if I was an uninformed buffoon who knew nothing more than what NBC tells me, and I was hearing only that side of the story, I would probably hate President Trump too.
