In #TrumpNation .
In #TrumpNation ... yeah, you know the schtick by now. Nothing is sacred, norms are inconvenient and the rule of law is just another hurdle to #DonaldTrump forcing his agenda.
Originally shared by Trey Harris
Trump's action stripping Brennan of his security clearance was dated July 26. So why did the White House only announce it today?
Update: After the White House first released the memorandum revoking the security clearance of former CIA Director John Brennan—a frequent and scathing critic of Trump and his regime—with a date of Thursday 26 July, they retracted it and re-published it — now undated.
Trump set off a furor about his musing whether to cancel the clearances of Brennan and other high-level regime critics on Monday, 23 July. (See The New York Times article from the paper on Tuesday the 24th, linked below.)
The news cycle about this proposed action—which would have been unprecedented—had died down by Wednesday, when Trump's fixer Michael Cohen released a surreptitious audio recording of Trump discussing a hush-money payoff to former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal. (My searches of transcripts haven't turned up any mention of the issue in press conferences and availabilities since.)
So it seems pretty clear what happened: Trump dropped the bombshell on Monday 23 July and regained control of the news cycle for a couple days, getting the spotlight off the trade war and Michael Cohen, two stories that weren't working for him. After the cycle ended and the spotlight was off, he actually carried through on the threat and exercised his authority to strip Brennan's clearance. (We don't know if he stripped any of the others named, such as former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper or former national security adviser Susan Rice. He also named former FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, but, as they had been fired by the regime, as a matter of course no longer had a valid clearance.)
After Trump stripped Brennan's clearance on Thu 26 July, the White House Communications office sat on it—presumably waiting until they needed it to redirect a damaging news cycle.
Cue Omarosa Manigault Newman and her verbal brickbats and her tapes, Trump's racist response to her, the end of the first federal trial of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and new questions about the ~700 refugee children separated from their families by the regime.
And.... distraction deployed.
To be clear: the stripping of Brennan's clearance isn't "just" a distraction. Stripping a former intelligence official's—let alone the former CIA Director's—clearance, when the official left office on good terms and there is no evidence of wrongdoing is unprecedented. Ordinarily, even if it was deemed necessary to strip a high-level clearance, it would first be suspended, and administrative proceedings would begin to allow for a modicum of due process before the clearance was actually rescinded.
The White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders claimed last month that Brennan and others on the list had been making money off their clearances. There's no evidence of this, and actual suspicions of this would result in a criminal referral, not administrative action.
The justification for former officials in good standing maintaining their clearances is that continuity in intelligence is important, and current officials need to be free to consult former officials about classified matters.
But even if Trump regime Director of National Intelligence Dan Coates had decided that Brennan's expertise would no longer be needed (which we know he had not, since he was apparently unaware of the clearance's cancellation until today), it's customary to allow officials to keep their clearances for at least a few years in case this changes.
And while Brennan has insisted on Twitter and in a television interview since this afternoon's announcement that he will not be silenced, the loss of his clearance means he no longer has limited discretion to discuss broad contours of classified matters in settings such as open hearings of Congress's intelligence committees, or, yes, on television and Twitter and in the op-ed pages. Like anyone else with a lapsed clearance, he must be extremely circumspect and run all intended statements, even vague ones, by the DHS for pre-approval.
(To cap the strangeness of this whole situation, Brennan says he was never informed by the regime of this action, and learned of it this afternoon through the news. So he potentially could have exercised that limited discretion over the past few weeks illegally without knowing it. Brennan is generally a careful speaker when veering close to classified matters, but he's no doubt now reviewing everything he's said and written since 26 July with a fine-toothed comb to see if he has any potential criminal liability.)
But there's a much more chilling prospect this action raises: while Brennan's loss of clearance will not affect his livelihood, consider the possible effect of Trump's draconian, unilateral and almost certainly unappealable action applied to others.
If Robert Mueller's clearance were summarily revoked, he would immediately lose access to his own office and his own files. He wouldn't lose his position as special counsel, but he would be suddenly unable to carry out his duties.
In other words, the strategic holding of public announcement here was clearly an attempt to change the news cycle—i.e., to "distract". But this is not a case where the press should—even if it could—try to counter the strategy by minimizing the news as "just a distraction". It's not; it's damn serious business.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/23/us/politics/trump-security-clearances.html?rref=collection/issuecollection/todays-new-york-times&action=click&contentCollection=todayspaper®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=collection
Originally shared by Trey Harris
Trump's action stripping Brennan of his security clearance was dated July 26. So why did the White House only announce it today?
Update: After the White House first released the memorandum revoking the security clearance of former CIA Director John Brennan—a frequent and scathing critic of Trump and his regime—with a date of Thursday 26 July, they retracted it and re-published it — now undated.
Trump set off a furor about his musing whether to cancel the clearances of Brennan and other high-level regime critics on Monday, 23 July. (See The New York Times article from the paper on Tuesday the 24th, linked below.)
The news cycle about this proposed action—which would have been unprecedented—had died down by Wednesday, when Trump's fixer Michael Cohen released a surreptitious audio recording of Trump discussing a hush-money payoff to former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal. (My searches of transcripts haven't turned up any mention of the issue in press conferences and availabilities since.)
So it seems pretty clear what happened: Trump dropped the bombshell on Monday 23 July and regained control of the news cycle for a couple days, getting the spotlight off the trade war and Michael Cohen, two stories that weren't working for him. After the cycle ended and the spotlight was off, he actually carried through on the threat and exercised his authority to strip Brennan's clearance. (We don't know if he stripped any of the others named, such as former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper or former national security adviser Susan Rice. He also named former FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, but, as they had been fired by the regime, as a matter of course no longer had a valid clearance.)
After Trump stripped Brennan's clearance on Thu 26 July, the White House Communications office sat on it—presumably waiting until they needed it to redirect a damaging news cycle.
Cue Omarosa Manigault Newman and her verbal brickbats and her tapes, Trump's racist response to her, the end of the first federal trial of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and new questions about the ~700 refugee children separated from their families by the regime.
And.... distraction deployed.
To be clear: the stripping of Brennan's clearance isn't "just" a distraction. Stripping a former intelligence official's—let alone the former CIA Director's—clearance, when the official left office on good terms and there is no evidence of wrongdoing is unprecedented. Ordinarily, even if it was deemed necessary to strip a high-level clearance, it would first be suspended, and administrative proceedings would begin to allow for a modicum of due process before the clearance was actually rescinded.
The White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders claimed last month that Brennan and others on the list had been making money off their clearances. There's no evidence of this, and actual suspicions of this would result in a criminal referral, not administrative action.
The justification for former officials in good standing maintaining their clearances is that continuity in intelligence is important, and current officials need to be free to consult former officials about classified matters.
But even if Trump regime Director of National Intelligence Dan Coates had decided that Brennan's expertise would no longer be needed (which we know he had not, since he was apparently unaware of the clearance's cancellation until today), it's customary to allow officials to keep their clearances for at least a few years in case this changes.
And while Brennan has insisted on Twitter and in a television interview since this afternoon's announcement that he will not be silenced, the loss of his clearance means he no longer has limited discretion to discuss broad contours of classified matters in settings such as open hearings of Congress's intelligence committees, or, yes, on television and Twitter and in the op-ed pages. Like anyone else with a lapsed clearance, he must be extremely circumspect and run all intended statements, even vague ones, by the DHS for pre-approval.
(To cap the strangeness of this whole situation, Brennan says he was never informed by the regime of this action, and learned of it this afternoon through the news. So he potentially could have exercised that limited discretion over the past few weeks illegally without knowing it. Brennan is generally a careful speaker when veering close to classified matters, but he's no doubt now reviewing everything he's said and written since 26 July with a fine-toothed comb to see if he has any potential criminal liability.)
But there's a much more chilling prospect this action raises: while Brennan's loss of clearance will not affect his livelihood, consider the possible effect of Trump's draconian, unilateral and almost certainly unappealable action applied to others.
If Robert Mueller's clearance were summarily revoked, he would immediately lose access to his own office and his own files. He wouldn't lose his position as special counsel, but he would be suddenly unable to carry out his duties.
In other words, the strategic holding of public announcement here was clearly an attempt to change the news cycle—i.e., to "distract". But this is not a case where the press should—even if it could—try to counter the strategy by minimizing the news as "just a distraction". It's not; it's damn serious business.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/23/us/politics/trump-security-clearances.html?rref=collection/issuecollection/todays-new-york-times&action=click&contentCollection=todayspaper®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=collection
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