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Former CIA Director John Brennan claimed President Donald Trump had “twisted the facts” in the Hunter Biden laptop story after his security clearance was revoked Tuesday.
By executive order, Trump revoked the security clearances of the 51 former intelligence officials who signed the 2020 letter claiming that the release of emails from the laptop had “all the classic hallmarks of a Russian information operation.” Many of them were outspoken supporters during Joe Biden’s presidential campaign against Trump.
The signatories said in the letter that they did not know whether the emails “are genuine or not and that we have no evidence of Russian involvement, only that our experience makes us deeply suspect 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 take on the Hunter Biden laptop story. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
“The signers of the letter falsely suggested that the story was part of a Russian disinformation campaign,” Trump said. executive order said about “former intelligence officials who engaged in deceptive and inappropriate political coordination with Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign.”
“He misrepresented the facts in that executive order because he said we had suggested that the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation,” Brennan said on MSNBC on Tuesday. “No, we said they were all hallmarks of Russian information operations, including the dumping of accurate information, which is what we said in that letter.”
“So, again, this was simply his effort to try to get back at those individuals who have openly and publicly criticized him in the past, and I think very legitimately,” he said.
Other officials named in the EO include former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper Jr., former CIA Director Michael Hayden, former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and former National Security Advisor John Bolton.
Three days after the letter was made public, Biden used it as a talking point in the final 2020 presidential debate to refute Trump’s criticism.
“There are 50 former members of national intelligence who said this thing you’re accusing me of is a Russian plan,” Biden said during the debate.
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 The Department of Justice knew since December 2019 that Hunter Biden’s laptop contained “reliable evidence” and “was not tampered with in any way.”
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Brennan said Trump had previously announced he would revoke your security clearance in 2018but they did not take away his authorization.
“The only reason I still had a security clearance, as I have had for the last few years since I left government service, was for the benefit of the government, so that if the CIA or another government agency wanted to call me to discuss a classified matter, they could do it,” Brennan said.
He added: “And it was really for the benefit of the government. It was to facilitate those classified discussions with myself, as well as with former directors, as well as with other former members of the intelligence community who had those clearances.”
Former CIA Director John Brennan spoke about 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 a web appearance in February 2024, Brennan stated that Russia is using Republican politicians “as tools.”
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Fox News’ David Spector contributed to this report.
