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This afternoon, the White House lashed out at the president’s most prominent critics from the last administration this morning, threatening to strip a who’s who of former law enforcement and intelligence officials turned MSNBC guests and “Sir, Have You No Decency” tweeters of their security clearances as some kind of punishment for their criticism.
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Former CIA Directors Michael Hayden and John Brennan, former FBI Director James Comey, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former National Security Advisor Susan Rice and former Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe were all floated as possible candidates to lose security clearances.
Of course, it appears the President’s efforts to intimidate his opposition has already run into a serious obstacle — the fact that James Comey doesn’t have a security clearance to revoke.
I just texted @Comey asking whether he even has a security clearance to revoke.
“Nope,” he responded. There’s nothing for POTUS to revoke. Comey says he was “read out” when he left government as per normal practice. 1/2
— Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) July 23, 2018
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Not only does he not have a clearance, he had the opportunity to get one recently, but declined so that he couldn’t give Trump the opportunity to accuse him of leaking information.
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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. 2/2
— Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) July 23, 2018
It’s unclear as of yet if the White House simply failed to do their due diligence and didn’t bother to check whether or not these officials have security clearances before making the announcement or if this entire thing is just a performative charade designed to make it look like the President is taking action against his enemies.
It’s been barely a few hours and Trump’s latest stunt is already turning into yet another humiliating public relations disaster.
