Latest in John Brennan
President Trump’s revocation of former CIA Director John Brennan’s security clearance brings together in an unfortunate way two pathological trends in the Trump era, and highlights the conundrum of the former intelligence official who wishes to speak out against the president’s attacks on the Russia investigation and the intelligence community more generally.
Once again, Donald Trump has heedlessly jeopardized important institutional interests of the presidency in the service of his own personal pique. For years, courts have declined to review the merits of security clearance determinations, relying on Department of Navy v. Egan, in which the Supreme Court held that the kind of “[p]redictive judgment” embodied in the grant or denial of a clearance “must be made by those with the necessary expertise in protecting classified information,” rather than judges.
We made a little video.
No commentary. No opinions. No nothing—except recent senior intelligence and administration officials answering questions about what they believe about the Russian election interference.
The senior intelligence all spoke at last week's Aspen Security Forum. The full videos of their remarks are available here. The other snippets are taken from, well, elsewhere.
As the Romans might say, res ipsa loquitur.
Former Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan will testify today before the House Intelligence Committee as part of its Russia investigation. Recall that Brennan was reportedly so concerned about Russia's interference before the election that he arranged briefings with senior lawmakers last summer.
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency John Brennan came to the Brookings Institution on July 13th for a conversation with Brookings Senior Fellow Bruce Riedel on “CIA’s strategy in the face of emerging challenges.” This week on the podcast, we bring you their discussion on a range of topics, from the Arab Spring, to the drone program, to the importance of integration across intelligence agencies—and last, but certainly not least, Donald Trump's call for the use of techniques "worse than waterboarding."
On Tuesday, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper provided the annual Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community to Congress.
Here's the video, which I am watching now:
The other day, I was privileged to participate in the CIA and George Washington University's conference on "The Ethos and Profession of Intelligence." Here are videos and audio of all of the sessions. The agenda ran as follows:
Conference Agenda
The New York Post recently reported on a hacker who claimed to have gained access to CIA Director John Brennan’s personal email account. The hacker then bragged to Wired magazine about how he did it.