Will Brennan Be Called Before a Grand Jury?

by Harley Schlanger

[Print version of this editorial]

Aug. 19—The revocation of former CIA chief John Brennan’s security clearance by President Trump should be recognized as the first step toward reversing the damage that he and his collaborators have inflicted on the United States. There are calls for a special counsel to investigate the “Russiagate” fraud that he launched with a guiding hand from the imperial forces of British intelligence. That campaign, which Trump calls a “witch hunt,” has constrained the President from proceeding with a decisive break with the old geopolitical doctrine of confrontation with Russia and China—a doctrine fully embraced by Brennan during his career.

What Brennan launched, in the spring of 2016, was not just a witch hunt, but a regime-change coup, of the sort he often coordinated in the CIA. And while the Mueller investigation continues, the anti-Russian forces in Congress allied with Brennan, Clapper and other Obama intelligence chiefs, are aggressively pushing policies against Russia to prevent the possibilities for peaceful agreement.

The lifting of Brennan’s security clearance was announced on August 15, with a press statement from President Trump charging that Brennan’s “lying and recent conduct characterized by increasingly frenzied commentary is wholly inconsistent with access to the nation’s most closely held secrets and facilities. . . . 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.” (In addition to his hyper-active Twitter account, Brennan is a paid expert commentator for the anti-Trump network MSNBC.)

Brennan and his collaborators launched Russiagate during the presidential campaign, in an attempt to prevent Trump from winning the election. Brennan obviously favored the CIA-friendly candidate, Hillary Clinton, who worked closely with him in anti-Russia operations, as well as in the coup in Libya. Once Trump won, Brennan lied that “17 U.S. intelligence agencies” all agree that Russia meddled in the election on behalf of Trump—a claim he continues to make, without ever presenting any evidence (while only three, not seventeen agencies signed on to his charges). His most recent hyperbolic outburst was his attack on the Helsinki summit between Presidents Trump and Putin, in which he stated that Trump’s “performance . . . rises to and exceeds the threshold of ‘high crimes and misdemeanors.’ It was nothing short of treasonous.”

Trump’s decision to revoke Brennan’s security clearance triggered a barrage of vitriolic nonsense from Brennan and his allies. Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, a close ally of Brennan in creating the Russiagate narrative, who is also on the list of those who may lose their security clearances, called Trump’s action an “infringement of First Amendment rights.” Brennan himself offered evidence that this charge is bunk, when he authored an op-ed in the New York Times on August 17 headlined “President Trump’s Claims of No Collusion Are Hogwash.”

That this vile op-ed was published proves that Trump’s actions do not infringe on his rights of free speech—only his right to receive classified briefings. But Brennan is not just exercising free speech in his attacks on Trump. He is continuing to coordinate the coup to remove Trump from office, largely on the grounds that he and his colleagues believe there can be no peace with Russia, and any effort by Trump to establish a productive dialogue proves that he is a “puppet” of Putin. It is Brennan who is a security threat to the United States, who has no inherent right to receive classified intelligence.

It is a sign of their “Trump Derangement Syndrome” that so many in the media and in the Congress jumped to Brennan’s defense. During Brennan’s time at the CIA, he committed multiple crimes: he covered up and then defended torture by his agency; he spied on Senate staffers investigating torture; he coordinated drone killings with Obama, including killings of American citizens, and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of civilians. And now, he is at the center of the web of lies and cover-up that characterizes the attacks on President Trump.

Brennan should be called before a Grand Jury to face these charges. But don’t expect a proven, serial liar to come clean and tell the truth.