Ex-CIA Director John Brennan claimed President Donald Trump had “misrepresented the facts” on the Hunter Biden laptop computer story after his safety clearance was revoked Tuesday.
By govt order, Trump revoked the safety clearances of the 51 former intel officers who signed the 2020 letter claiming that the discharge of emails from the laptop computer had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” A lot of them have been open supporters on the time of Joe Biden’s presidential marketing campaign towards Trump.
The signatories mentioned within the letter they didn’t know if the emails “are genuine or not and that we do not have evidence of Russian involvement — just that our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case.”
Brennan, who was among the many signers, known as the manager order “bizarre” and claimed Trump distorted the letter.
JOHN BRENNAN’S CLOSED-DOOR HEARING ‘CONFIRMED’ HUNTER LAPTOP LETTER WAS ‘ALL POLITICAL’: JIM JORDAN
Former CIA director John Brennan known as out President Donald Trump’s view of the Hunter Biden laptop computer story. (Photograph by Alex Wong/Getty Photographs)
“Signatories of the letter falsely suggested that the news story was part of a Russian disinformation campaign,” Trump’s govt order mentioned of “the former intelligence officials who engaged in misleading and inappropriate political coordination with the 2020 Biden presidential campaign.”
“He misrepresented the facts in that executive order because it said that we had suggested that the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation,” Brennan mentioned on MSNBC Tuesday. “No, we said it was all the hallmarks of Russian information operations, including the dumping of accurate information, which is what we said in that letter.”
“So, again, this was just, you know, his effort to try to get back at those individuals who have criticized him openly and publicly in the past, and I think very legitimately,” he mentioned.
Different officers named within the EO embrace former Director of Nationwide Intelligence James Clapper Jr., former CIA director Michael Hayden, former Secretary of Protection Leon Panetta and former Nationwide Safety Advisor John Bolton.
Three days after the letter was made public, Biden used it as a speaking level within the last 2020 presidential debate to rebut criticisms made by Trump.
“There are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what this, he’s accusing me of, is a Russian plan,” Biden mentioned in the course of the debate.
Shortly after taking workplace, President Trump revoked Brennan’s and 50 others’ safety clearances by govt order. (AP Photograph/Matt Rourke)
In 2023, it was reported that the Division of Justice had identified since December 2019 that Hunter Biden’s laptop computer contained “reliable evidence” and was “not manipulated in any way.”
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Brennan mentioned that Trump had beforehand introduced he would revoke his safety clearance in 2018, however his clearance was not taken away.
“The only reason why I still had a security clearance, as I have for the past number of years since I left government service, was for the benefit of the government, so that if the CIA or another government agency wanted to call me in to discuss a classified matter, they could do that,” Brennan mentioned.
He added, “And so it was really for the government’s benefit. It was to facilitate those classified discussions with myself, as well as with former directors, as well as other former members of the intelligence community that had those clearances.”
Former CIA Director John Brennan mentioned the manager order on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” Tuesday. (MSNBC screenshot)
Brennan has appeared frequently on MSNBC as a senior nationwide safety analyst and is considered one of Trump’s harshest critics.
In a Feb. 2024 look on the community, Brennan claimed that Russia is utilizing Republican politicians “as tools.”
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Fox Information’ David Spector contributed to this report.
