Republican Senator Rand Paul said that on Monday he will be meeting with President Donald Trump where he will ask the President to revoke the security clearance that former CIA Director John Brennan has.
“Is John Brennan monetizing his security clearance?” Paul asked on Twitter.
“Is John Brennan making millions of dollars divulging secrets to the mainstream media with his attacks on [Trump]?”
“Today I will meet with the President and I will ask him to revoke John Brennan’s security clearance,” he added.
Brennan, who was the CIA director under former President Barack Obama, regularly criticizes Trump’s policies. Last week Brennan tweeted that Trump’s rhetoric in Helsinki was “nothing short of treasonous.”
He also asked how Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Adviser John Bolton and Chief of Staff John Kelly “can continue in their jobs.”
According to CNN, former intelligence officials usually maintain high-level security clearances after they leave their positions. Revoking security clearance in response to criticism is a highly unusual step, CNN wrote.
Paul is one of the few people that were on Trump’s side during the wave of bipartisan criticism for some of his comments during a joint press conference with Putin.
Shortly after the summit, Paul blocked a resolution from Senator Bernie Sanders that supported the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment of Russia’s election interference, calling it “crazy hatred” against Trump.
Paul stated that the resolution was a sign of “Trump derangement syndrome” in the Senate.
Other Republican lawmakers have also leveled attacks against Brennan.
Representative Ron DeSantis said that the former CIA director was a “disaster” and accused him of being a member of the Communist Party during the Cold War.
“John Brennan was a disaster as CIA director. He was a disaster as the counterterrorism official. He was a member of the Communist Party during the Cold War,” DeSantis said on Fox News.
Brennan has admitted that he voted for the Communist Party’s presidential candidate, Gus Hall, in 1976, saying it was his way of “signaling my unhappiness with the system, and the need for change.”
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