Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said he thinks President Trump is ‘trolling people’ with the White House threat to remove security clearances from a host of top former intelligence officials who have criticized the president.
Ryan appeared to brush off the matter after White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said Monday that a handful of critics, including former CIA director John Brennan, could lose their clearances. She accused them of having ‘monetized’ their status.
The hit on Brennan came after the former spy chief said Trump’s performance in Helsinki, Finland with Russian president Vladimir Putin amounted to treason.
‘I think he is trolling people, honestly,’ said Ryan, who is retiring at the end of his term.
House Speaker Paul Ryan said he thinks Trump is ‘trolling’ critics with the threat to pull security clearances from top senior-level critics
‘This is something that’s in the purview of the executive branch, I think some of these people have lost their security clearances, some people keep their clearance that’s something the executive branch deals with,’ Ryan added. ‘That’s not really in our purview,’ he concluded.
Ryan’s dismissal of the issue came after the White House revealed Trump is exploring ways to remove the security clearances of former CIA chief John Brennan, former FBI director James Comey and other Obama era national security officials who have been critical of his administration.
Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul floated the idea and then spoke to Trump about it at the White House Tuesday, he said.
Sanders made the shocking announcement at her briefing on Monday and charged the officials with using their security clearances for political means and financial gain.
Former deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Andrew McCabe, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former Director of the National Security Agency Michael Hayden, and former National Security Advisor Susan Rice are also on the White House list.
Former CIA director John Brennan (L) and former director of National Intelligence James Clapper are in danger of losing their security clearances after angering the president
Former FBi director James Comey no longer has a security clearance
Former deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Andrew McCabe was fired by the Trump administration and lost his security clearance at that time
Sarah Huckabee Sanders made the shocking announcement in her briefing on Tuesday
Former National Security Advisor Susan Rice is on the White House list for losing her clearance
Former Director of the NSA Michael Hayden is under fire from the Trump administration
‘The president is exploring the mechanisms to remove security clearances because they’ve politicized and in some cases monetized their clearances,’ she said.
‘It’s extremely inappropriate, and the fact that people with security clearances are making baseless charges provides inappropriate legitimacy to accusations with zero evidence,’ she added.
Rice, who served as national security advisor to President George W. Bush, called Trump’s meeting with Putin a ‘historic mistake.’
‘It was a historic mistake to allow the president of the United States — not just Donald Trump, but any president, frankly — to sit for two hours without any notetakers, without any aides present, with one of the most adversarial leaders in the world, relative to the United States,’ she told ABC’s ‘This Week’ on Sunday.
It’s unclear what she meant by the monetization accusation. Some of the former officials are contributors to news networks, which pay them for their work. She made the statement as her predecessor, Sean Spicer, is engaged in a promotional book tour.
All of the officials mentioned have been deeply critical of the Trump administration in one way or another.
Benjamin Wittes, editor of the Lawfare blog and a friend of Comey’s, tweeted Monday that he texted the former FBI boss to ask if he even has a clearance that could be revoked. ‘Nope,’ Comey responded, he wrote. ‘.Comey says he was ‘read out’ when he left government as per normal practice,’ Wittes wrote.
‘He even recently declined a temporary clearance from the IG to read the classified annex to the IG’s recent report. He didn’t want to see any classified material lest the president accuse him of leaking it,’ Wittes added.
Asked if the White House was doing this because of their criticism, Sanders responded: ‘I think you are creating your own story there.’
She added: ‘The president doesn’t like the fact that people are politicizing agencies and departments that are specifically meant to not be political and not meant to be monetized off of security clearances.’
Sanders didn’t have details on how the clearance could be removed.
‘As of now we’re exploring the mechanism on those specific names,’ she said.
At least two of the officials — Comey and McCabe — do not currently have clearances, according to The Washington Post.
Comey hasn’t had a security clearance for many months, a source close to him told the paper.
McCabe’s clearance was deactivated when he was fired from the FBI, said his spokesman Melissa Schwartz.
‘Andrew McCabe’s security clearance was deactivated when he was terminated, according to what we were told was FBI policy,’ she wrote on Twitter. ‘You would think the White House would check with the FBI before trying to throw shiny objects to the press corps…’
Sanders was also asked if the White House was politicizing the security clearance issue as they accused the former intel chiefs of doing.
‘The president is not not making baseless accusations of contact with a foreign government and accusing the president of treasonous activity,’ she responded.
Clapper went on CNN afterward to call the move ‘a petty thing to do.’
‘For political reasons this is a petty way of retribution, I suppose for speaking out against the president which I think on the part of all of us, are borne out of genuine concerns about President Trump,’ he said.
He added: ‘Security clearance has nothing to do with how I or any of us feel about the president. And I don’t get the briefings. I don’t have access to classified information. It’s frankly more of a courtesy that former senior officials get the security clearance. Haven’t had a case of using it. Has no bearing on my regard or lack thereof for President Trump or what he’s doing.’
And Hayden tweeted whether or not he had a clearance would not affect his work.
‘I dont go back for classified briefings. Won’t have any effect on what I say or write,’ he wrote.
While Clapper and Hayden have said their clearance status doesn’t matter, other officials do use their security clearance to perform lucrative consulting work. The threat of losing their status and, therefore, any employment obtained on the contingency of having a clearance, could have a chilling effort on potential critics.
A security clearance requires a security clearance investigation completed within the past 5 years for a Top Secret clearance and 10 years for a Secret clearance, according to the State Department website.
High-level officials also typically keep their clearances for years so they can provide counsel to their successors and be called upon by their advice.
There are 13 guidelines that, if violated, could result in a security clearance being revoked. They include criminal activity, sudden unexplained wealth, helping a foreign government, alcohol or drug addiction, and unauthorized disclosure of classified information.
Any president can classify or declassify information as he see fits. It’s unclear if Trump could simply order the clearances revoked.
Sanders’ announcement follows Republican Senator Rand Paul’s demand that Brennan lose his security clearance.
Brennan has been the most vocal in the wake of Trump’s meeting in Helsinki with Putin.
In a series of tweets, Paul charged the former intelligence chief with making money off his clearance and said he would meet with Trump on Monday to demand it be revoked.
Michael Hayden tweeted a loss of security clearance would not affect his work
A spokesperson for Andrew McCabe said he lost his clearance when he was fired
Republican Sen. Rand Paul wants former CIA chief John Brennan to lose his security clearance
Former CIA chief John Brennan said President Trump’s remarks in his press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin was ‘treasonous’
Sen. Paul charged Brennan with making money off his security clearance
Sen. Paul said he would meet with President Trump on the issue
Sen. Paul tweeted after his meeting with Trump where he appeared to take credit for the move
Paul wrote he didn’t think the former officials should use their status for paid speeches or news network contributor contracts
Paul’s office did not respond to DailyMail.com’s request for comment.
‘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?,’ the senator tweeted Monday morning.
He wrote in a later tweet: ‘Today I will meet with the President and I will ask him to revoke John Brennan’s security clearance!’
It’s unclear when that meeting took place but Paul tweeted about it shortly after Sanders’ briefing and appeared to take credit for the White House move.
‘Just got out of WH meeting with @realDonaldTrump. I restated to him what I have said in public: John Brennan and others partisans should have their security clearances revoked,’ he wrote.
He also clarified he didn’t think the officials should get speaking fees or network contracts based on their status.
‘Public officials should not use their security clearances to leverage speaking fees or network talking head fees,’ he wrote on Twitter.
Paul, a maverick GOP senator who does not always have the best relationships with the Republican Party or Trump, has emerged as one of the president’s biggest champions on his meeting with Putin.
He also defended Trump’s criticism of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, telling CBS News: ‘The President has gone through a year and a half of totally partisan investigations – what’s he supposed to think?’
The president tweeted his thanks to Paul in return.
Paul plans to travel to Russia in early August on behalf of the administration, according to Politico.
Brennan served as President Barack Obama’s CIA director and left the job in January 2017 after Trump was inaugurated.
Since then he has become one of the president’s harshest critics.
Brennan soundly criticized Trump after his press conference with Putin in Helsinki last week, calling it ‘nothing short of treasonous.’
He also accused the president of being ‘wholly in the pocket of Putin.’
‘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???,’ tweeted Brennan.
President Trump has been just as critical of former CIA Chief John Brennan as Brennan has been of him
Sen. Rand Paul has emerged as one of Trump’s biggest champions on Russia
He was expressing his fury that the president declined to back the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election.
Putin denied Russia had any role in the election.
Trump was asked if he believed his Russian counterpart or his intelligence chiefs. ‘I don’t see any reason why it would be’ Russia, the president said.
‘I have great confidence in my intelligence people,’ he added, ‘but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today. And what he did is an incredible offer. He offered to have the people working on the case come and work with their investigators with respect to the 12 people. I think that’s an incredible offer.’
The president later clarified his remarks to say he did believe intelligence assessments that Russia meddled in the 2016 contest.
Trump also fired back at Brennan, slamming him in an interview with Fox News Channel’sTucker Carlson.
‘I think Brennan is a very bad guy, and if you look at it, a lot of things happened under his watch,’ Trump told Carlson.
‘I think he’s a very bad person.’
Brennan has not held back in the harsh language he uses to describe the president.
In June op-ed he wrote for The Washington Post, Brennan called Trump a ‘snake-oil salesman’ who has shown ‘mean-spirited, malicious, and highly abnormal behavior.’
Trump fired back then too. He attacked Brennan on Twitter after the op-ed appeared, quoting a former Secret Service agent who appeared on ‘Fox & Friends’ and called Brennan a liar.