Former CIA Director John Brennan claimed that President Donald Trump “misstated the facts” regarding the Hunter Biden laptop story after he… His security clearance was revoked Tuesday.
By executive order, Trump revoked the security clearances of 51 former intelligence officials who signed the 2020 letter alleging that the release of the emails from the laptop bore “all the classic hallmarks of a Russian information operation.” Many of them were vocal supporters at the time of Joe Biden's presidential campaign against Trump.
The signatories said in the letter that they did not know whether the emails were “genuine or not, and we have no evidence of Russian involvement — but our experience is such that we strongly doubt that the Russian government played a significant role in this case.” “
Brennan, who was among the signatories, called the executive order “bizarre” and claimed that Trump distorted the letter.
Former CIA Director John Brennan criticized President Donald Trump's view of the Hunter Biden laptop story. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
“The signatories of the letter falsely indicated that the news story was part of a Russian disinformation campaign,” Trump said. Executive order He said of “former intelligence officials who engaged in misleading and inappropriate political coordination with Biden's 2020 presidential campaign.”
“He misrepresented the facts in this executive order because he said we suggested the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation,” Brennan told MSNBC on Tuesday. “No, we said that represents all the hallmarks of Russian media operations, including the delivery of accurate information, which is what we said in that letter.”
“So, again, this was just his effort to try to respond to these individuals who have publicly and publicly criticized him in the past, and I think that's very legitimate,” he added.
Other officials named in the executive order include former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper Jr., former CIA Director Michael Hayden, former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, and former National Security Advisor John Bolton.
Three days after the letter was published, Biden used it as a talking point in the final presidential debate of 2020 to rebut criticism of Trump.
Biden said during the debate: “There are 50 former national intelligence officers who said that what he is accusing me of is a Russian plan.”
Shortly after taking office, President Trump revoked the security clearances of Brennan and 50 others by executive order. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
In 2023, it was reported that The Ministry of Justice was aware of this Since December 2019 Hunter Biden's laptop contained “credible evidence” and had “not been tampered with in any way.”
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Brennan said that Trump had previously announced that he would do so His security clearance was revoked in 2018However, his statement was not withdrawn.
“The only reason I still have a security clearance, as I have for all the years since I left government service, is for the benefit of the government, so that if the CIA or another government agency wanted to subpoena me to a classified matter, they could,” Brennan said. that”.
He added: “And this was actually for the benefit of the government. It was intended to facilitate those confidential discussions with me, as well as with the former directors, as well as other former members of the intelligence community who had obtained those clearances.”
Former CIA Director John Brennan discussed the executive order on MSNBC's “Andrea Mitchell Reports” on Tuesday. (MSNBC screenshot)
Brennan has appeared regularly on MSNBC as a senior national security analyst and is one of Trump's harshest critics.
In his February 2024 appearance on the network, Brennan claimed so Russia uses Republican politicians as “tools.”
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Fox News' David Spector contributed to this report.
