https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/15/politics/john-brennan-security-clearance/index.html
President Donald Trump announced Wednesday he has revoked former CIA director John Brennan’s security clearance, marking an unprecedented use of a president’s authority over the classification system to strike back at one of his prominent critics.
“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 a 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 is the first former national security official to see his security clearance revoked since the White House announced last month that Trump was considering taking that action against several of his most vocal critics in the national security world.
Officials at risk of seeing their security clearances revoked expressed concern about Trump using his presidential authority to strike back at critics but said revoking their security clearances would have little impact on them.
Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, said he 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.
Hayden, the former CIA and National Security Agency chief, said losing his clearance would “have a marginal impact on the work I do.”
“With regard to the implied threat today that I could lose my clearance, that will have no impact on what I think, say or write,” Hayden said.