I don’t think the court will tell the president that he can’t make a list. I also don’t think anybody in the world besides you thinks that all the president did was make a list.
He publicly threatened a list of people who oppose him politically and then he demonstrated the credibility of that threat by ordering the government to take action against one of those people. The court may indeed tell the president that he can’t do that.
Here’s Richard Parker’s post again for clarity.
The government has already taken action that has dissuaded the nine people I’ve previously posted from exercising their First Amendment rights. The have standing to sue. Where it goes from there is anybody’s guess.
Well, I guess we’ll have to wait and see. If none of these people does file a suit, I think we can confidently say that they don’t have one to file. If, as you say, the president “has dissuaded the nine people you’ve previously posted from exercising their First Amendment rights”, it would be odd if not one of them took legal action to reverse that state of affairs. These are not timid, fragile people, but prominent, knowledgeably people who know their rights and have been vocal in their opposition to Trump.
If one of them is successful in establishing standing to get Brennan’s security clearance reinstated, I’ll happily admit I was wrong.
I didn’t say that was all he did. I said that was one of the things that prevents them from having standing.
If he’s a political enemy, he’s not a person to take advice from.
Where I work, when a person is fired, they clear their desk under supervision, have their keys disabled, and are walked to the front door.
I’ve heard a suggestion that the actual point of removal of this perk is that it makes it makes it more difficult to mount political attacks - that it’s difficult to formulate replies to questions from congress if you don’t have access – is that a credible suggestion?
It seems to me to be good policy to limit the number of people with access to classified information. I don’t think that is debatable. It is also good policy to allow former senior members of intelligence agencies to retain their security clearances only so if needed in the future those people can give advice to the president. It is not a personal perk of retirement.
As such, when a former official shows open hostility to the president such that it will be unlikely in the extreme that he or she will ever be asked for advice in the future, it makes little sense to allow that individual to retain a security clearance.
I think it is pretty clear that it would be legal to fire a senior official for speaking out against a president’s policy as part of the “government as employer” doctrine. Why should it then be impermissible for the government to take away a benefit that was only received because of that former employment?
IOW, what demonstrable harm has Brennan suffered? He is not being imprisoned or fined because of his criticism of Trump. His only harm is the loss of his security clearance which he only possesses at the will and pleasure of the president as incident to a job which he no longer holds.
Retired officials that maintain an inactive clearance don’t have regular access to classified material. It’s not like Brennan could walk into CIA HQ and demand all the information available on Operation Super Freedom. The clearance allows them to be brought in for advice and information, but doesn’t provide them unfettered access to whatever piques their fancy. Access is already controlled - revocation is a useless act in that regard.
Even if you ignore that a significant chunk of things considered and done under intelligence agencies never reach the attention of the Cabinet, let alone the President, and thus no one would care if he disliked said President - there may very well be a new President in a couple years. What if he/she needed Brennan’s advice on a topic he was knowledgeable? Too bad, bridge crossed, asset burned.
Don’t get confused, security clearances take a lot of time and money, usually six months to a year for a Top Secret clearance, often running into hundreds of thousands of dollars. You’re okay throwing away that much money and manpower for Trump’s fee-fees? Because that’s exactly what this is about. Are we taking away ALL inactive clearances? No, just this one? Huh…weird.
As for harm - there are quite a few civilian positions that require a security clearance, especially at the upper levels. When hiring for those positions, contractors will very obviously discriminate in favor of clearance holders - why hire someone that can’t do their job for a year? He’s made Brennan virtually unemployable in his field of expertise.
This entire situation isn’t about JUST Brennan. This is about a dozen OTHER people who are squarely in Der Dumpster’s crosshairs.
John Brennan has spent his entire life with the CIA, serving under every President since Reagan, never criticizing his ultimate boss until just before stepping down with Trump’s inauguration, AFTER being compared to Nazis by the Tiny Handed Titian Tantrum. The only way Brennan is Trump’s political opponent is that he has spent his entire life DEFENDING the US, only to watch Dorito Mussolini do everything in his power to flush it down the gold-plated toilet at Trump Tower NYC.
The revocation of Brennan’s security clearance is a combined distraction from the shitshow that is DJT’s administration and barely-veiled threat against the other people on Trump’s “Enemies List”.
The very emptiness of the gesture may be, in fact, the point. There is no real effect, as has been noted. Brennan was the only actual target, the rest are all threats that may or may not prove to be real.
So, he looks like he is taking strong and decisive action, all stern and manly, without affecting much of anything, other than the insinuation that these people are somehow security risks.
Only thing that makes this seem implausible is that its kinda smart. In a twisted sort of way.
Most of the people in my office are, like me, former military who retained their clearance to allow us to get our jobs. If we had lost our clearance, the military would have had to spend lots of time and money reopening investigations in order to hire us. So that’s another reason not to discard a clearance without basis (meaning without evidence they were no longer qualified, which generally means integrity, to have a clearance).
Of course Donald Trump is a focus of the Mueller investigation - I think it was assumed that he would be almost from the start.
But that’s not really what we’re talking about in this particular case. Brennan’s security clearance was removed not because he might be a witness - the status of Brennan’s clearance privileges has no apparent bearing on any of Trump’s potential legal jeopardy.
Trump removed Brennan’s security clearance as a way to shut him up. That’s about all he can do to shut Brennan up, who appears determined to continue criticizing the president regardless. So I maintain, the president hasn’t taken away Brennan’s speech rights, just his security clearance.
I saw the interview with Adm. Mike Mullen and I also read comments from James Clapper, both of whom are worried less about the revocation of Brennan’s clearance and more about the broader impact of the intelligence community getting sucked into a political gladiator match with the president. Whether it’s by design or accident (probably the latter), the president has now baited intelligence officials, who are generally considered to be neutral civil servants, into a WWE-style political ladder match. That plays into the president’s hands, and it potentially discredits agencies where the culture is supposed to be dull and neutral. That’s the longer-term danger here.
If the new Administration doesn’t want Brennan’s advice, it need not ask for it. Further, if they don’t want him to have access to classified information, they need not give him any. It isn’t like he can waltz in to the Pentagon or wherever and demand to see anything he wants, just because he has a clearance. This is what most people fail to understand.
The issue here is that the President is picking out political opponents and seeking to punish them by whatever means he has at his disposal… that happens to be legal. The entire point here is not the safeguarding of classified information, but retribution.
Who knows, maybe the President will start ordering his critics to undergo tax audits. Then the Trumpists will say, What’s wrong with the IRS reviewing tax returns?
I’ll note that Cyrus Vance resigned from Carter’s cabinet over severe policy differences. I see no evidence that he had his clearance stripped.
Suppose a court considering First Amendment issues was to determine the following was (or likely was) the case. Trump did not strip Brennan’s security clearance as part of a calculated attempt to prevent him or anyone else from speaking out about the issues. Trump stripped his security clearance because he was angry at the guy and hated him for speaking out against him, and his inclination was to “fight back” by harming the guy in the only way he had on hand.
As others have said, it’s not a perk it’s a designation that indicates that said person’s background has been thoroughly checked out at great effort and expense and it has been determined that he is trustworthy enough to be entrusted with secrets. Unless there is anything that has caused him to be compromised in the time since his clearance was last renewed it makes no sense to strip him of it. If he did decide to work for some government contractor that required clearance would it really make sense for the FBI to waste all the time and money re-investigating him again when nothing has changed?
Stripping him of his clearance makes as much sense as stripping an airforce pilot of his pilots license and making him go back to flight school when he leaves the military.
Brennan said, on Meet the Press yesterday, that he was considering legal action. But the way he hemmed and hawed about it, I doubt he’ll actually go through with it. I think it would be unwise to do so because I don’t think he has much of a chance of winning and losing will be seen as a “victory” for Trump. But it’s up to him, and if he wants to do it, so be it.
An argument could be made, but I highly doubt it would go anywhere. The courts are extremely hesitant to weigh in on political or security matters. Brennon hasn’t really be “harmed” in the eyes of the law, and he’s probably more free to speak now than he was last week.
For the record, Trump’s actions are deplorable in this instance. I just don’t think there is a legal remedy. Time will tell, I guess.
Do you think you know more about this than “One hundred and seventy-five former US officials spanning service across intelligence agencies, the State Department, the National Security Council and the Department of Defense”? That’s not a rhetorical question – does knowing that all those former officials from all those security departments disagree with you change your opinion on the subject?