I don’t have a security clearance, so no, Trump’s actions have had no effect on me being able to exercise my 1st Amendment rights. It could be argued that he’s trying to shut up those people that DO have security clearances-- in other words, big shots in the national security world.
IANAL, but it doesn’t seem to me that Brennan was actually Trump’s target to shut up. He’s trying to stifle every other retired muckity-muck that he feels threatened by. I don’t know how “standing” or the legal angle works on that. But IMO, Trump wasn’t trying to shut up Brennan, so I don’t see how his First Amendment rights could possibly have been violated (since, as people have pointed out, he’s still talking).
Brennan may still speak out, but he now speaks out to a potential audience that can choose to believe that his words are not credible because the government revoked his security clearance. We may reasonably expect that about a third of Americans will avail themselves of this choice.
This is the essence of the action taken by the President to dissuade Brennan from exercising his First Amendment rights. This is the essence of the effort to intimidate others from exercising their First Amendment rights:* ‘Speak out against the President, and the President will destroy your credibility.’*
Credibility or not, he’s still speaking out, and this hasn’t stopped that.
It’s all those other retirees with security clearances who now might be biting their tongues going forward…or else they may lose their clearance…
To me, that’s the violation of someone’s free speech here. Trump is using his power as the head of the government to target a specific group of people with negative actions if they now speak out against him. NOT Brennan. He was speaking freely before, and he’s speaking freely now. Trump’s action against him did nothing to stifle his speech.
Yes, and Trump is providing himself with brand-new characterizations of the many people on his little list–a list which not-coincidentally is filled with potential witnesses against him in the Russia investigation. Namely, those people are now characterized as ‘people with such major integrity and honesty violations to their discredit that they had to have their security clearances revoked.’
You appear, here, to be asserting that John Brennan has used his security clearance “as a sword against the administration that grants it.”
If that is what you are asserting, can you provide some examples of Brennan’s public utterances that could not have been made, if he had not had a security clearance?
Note that not even Trump’s ghostwriter has gone so far as to assert the existence of evidence that Brennan has actually made use of his security clearance in this way:
In the White House statement, Trump’s ghostwriter offers two allegations about Brennan lying to Congress (in 2014, and about the use of the Steele dossier), but no allegations about Brennan making use of his security clearance as a means of facilitating attacks against the current Administration. The ghostwriter, instead, baldly asserts “lying” without offering any particulars about ‘lies’ that could be told only by someone with a security clearance.
The ghostwriter also complains that Brennan’s allegations could not have been made publicly without the “status” of being someone with a security clearance. That seems shaky, given the number of commentators on the news shows and writers of editorials who do not possess a security clearance, yet manage to get booked and published anyway.
So, apparently in your zeal to ‘prove’ that Liberals are Hypocrites, you have gone further than did Trump’s own ghostwriter, with your claim that Brennan has used his security clearance “as a sword.”
Can you back up that claim with any evidence? What has Brennan said that he could not have said, had his security clearance already expired?
It’s an attempt to stifle his ability to give good advice. If he doesn’t have the clearance he will be less helpful to the US. His speech will be limited in that he is out of the loop. Revocations have consequences.
I think there are significant numbers of people who are already suing darnoiled. Richard Painter is. Brennan has said he can. The people who have standing are going to be standing room only.
Painter’s lawsuit isn’t (wasn’t) about this issue, and it was already dismissed due to… lack of standing. He’s appealing, so we’ll see how that goes. But it’s not about security clearances, it’s about the emoluments clause. Brennan would have standing, which I already noted, so you’re not disagreeing with me. If Trump targets someone else, specifically, they would obviously have standing as well. As for anyone else wrt to this particular issue, I guess we’ll see in the coming weeks. If there is a non-Brennan lawsuit to be had, I’m sure someone will bite.
I don’t disagree with you, and I would say that it’s not just retirees but all current members of the federal workforce.
Even so, it’s difficult to make the argument that he has used government powers to curb their free speech rights. In the context of employment, free speech has different meanings, different interpretations.
They wouldn’t be suing the government for some hypothetical future action. The government already has taken action to dissuade them from exercising their First Amendment rights.
Also, of course you can sue someone to prevent them from performing a future act. I’m not a lawyer but I believe the correct term is ‘preventive injunction’.
What is the remedy? You really think the SCOTUS is going to tell the president he can’t make a list?
Not the same thing. As I understand it, you can file a preventive injunction against an act that is actually planned to go into effect and for which there is already a lawsuit in progress, but not one that “might” go into effect. If Trump were to issue an order that Susan Rice be stripped of her security clearance on Jan 1, 2019, for example, she could try to get a preventive injunction if it will take longer than that time to adjudicate the removal of the clearance. She files a 1st amendment suit against the action, and then she files for a preventive injunction to preserve the status quo until the court case is resolved. But she couldn’t do so simply because she was afraid that it might happen.
And the more I think about, the more I think even someone like Brennan isn’t going to have a case. I’m having a hard time seeing how that would play out in the SCOTUS. That is, the SCOTUS telling the US President that he must give a security clearance to someone who isn’t even a government employee anymore. I think the chances of us finding out are vanishingly small, so I think we’ll never know for sure.
But I think you’re wrong about that question being irrelevant. In order to have standing, you need to establish redressablity. That is, you have to show that it is likely that a court decision will redress the alleged injury. If there is no remedy, or if the court is unlikely to compel a remedy, then there is no decision that will redress the injury (or it is unlikely the court will find one).
So I’ll ask again, for the final time. Do you think the court will tell the president that he can’t make a list like the one we are talking about? If not, then that is yet another reason why the folks on that list would not have standing.