John Brennan (CIA officer)

John Owen Brennan (born September 22, 1955)[1][2] is a former American intelligence officer who served as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from March 2013 to January 2017. He served as chief counterterrorism advisor to U.S. President Barack Obama, with the title Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, and Assistant to the President.[1][3][4] Previously, he advised Obama on foreign policy and intelligence issues during the 2008 election campaign and presidential transition.[5]

Brennan's 25 years with the CIA included work as a Near East and South Asia analyst, as station chief in Saudi Arabia, and as director of the National Counterterrorism Center.[3][6][8] After leaving government service in 2005, Brennan became CEO of The Analysis Corporation, a security consulting business, and served as chairman of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, an association of intelligence professionals.[9]

On August 15, 2018, President Donald Trump announced that he had revoked Brennan's security clearance, although the White House reportedly did not follow through with the revocation process.[14] Brennan had harshly criticized Trump several times since his election and responded to the revocation by stating "My principles are worth far more than clearances. I will not relent."[15][16][17]

Brennan serves as a senior national security and intelligence analyst for NBC News and MSNBC. His inaugural appearance was on Meet the Press with Chuck Todd on Sunday, February 4, 2018.[18]

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The Analysis Corporation

The Analysis Corporation (TAC) was the Intelligence Solutions business of Global Defense Technology & Systems, Inc. (GTEC), now Sotera Defense Solutions, a defense contracting company. Based in McLean, Virginia, it is a wholly owned subsidiary of Global Strategies Group (North America) Inc., the operating company of GTEC. From its inception in 1990 to its dissolution in 2012, TAC worked on projects in the counterterrorism and national security realm by supporting national watchlisting activities as well as other counterterrorism requirements.

TAC was founded in 1990 by Cecilia nmi Hayes, previous owner and partner in Analytic Methods Inc. (AMI) and current owner of TAC Commercial Services (TCS) and Nations Home Group. In 2004, TAC was purchased by SFA and maintained as a wholly owned subsidiary. Ms. Hayes remained president of TAC into 2005. In November 2005, John O. Brennan was appointed president and CEO of TAC. Mr. Brennan was the former interim director of the National Counterterrorism Center[1] and a 25-year veteran of the CIA.[2]

In January 2009, Brennan was selected by President Barack Obama to serve in his administration as Homeland Security Adviser and Deputy National Security Adviser for Counterterrorism. Due to his strong ties to TAC, he required a special ethics waiver in order to lead the investigation into the intelligence failures surrounding the Underwear Bomber terrorist attack.[3] In March 2013, Brennan was appointed director of the Central Intelligence Agency.[4]

Following Brennan's departure in October 2008 as advisor to then-presidential candidate Barack Obama, Alexander Drew became the acting president of TAC. Drew was named president in January 2009 and remained through February 2012, when TAC was dissolved and assimilated into Sotera Defense Solutions, formerly SFA, Global Strategies Group (North America), and GTEC.

GTEC's Intelligence Solutions business, which is staffed by other former senior officials from the Intelligence community, operates within almost every entity in the Intelligence Community including the US Department of State, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).

In early 2008 TAC found itself in the midst of a scandal when a State Department spokesman revealed that a TAC contractor, formerly a retired State Department employee, gained unauthorized access on March 14 to the passport records for Barack Obama and John McCain.[6] The TAC employee, who has not been named, is the only individual to have accessed both Obama's and McCain's passport information without proper authorization, a State Department spokesman said. The employee's actions triggered an electronic alarm system, according to sources familiar with the probe.[7] TAC strongly disavowed the employee's actions in a subsequent press release.[8]

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Former CIA Director Brennan: Republican spines left with John McCain

by John Bowden - 08/25/18 9:56 AM ET

Former CIA Director John Brennan slammed congressional Republicans on Friday night, saying the party’s ability to stand up to President Trump left Capitol Hill with Sen. John McCain (R), who has been in Arizona for months battling brain cancer.

In an interview on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher,” Brennan called for a “reckoning” within the GOP over Trump’s frequent criticism of the intelligence community.

{mosads}”I got into some real donnybrook fights with John McCain over policy,” Brennan told host Bill Maher. “I never once questioned his integrity and his interest in doing what is best for this country.”

“But since John McCain has left the Hill, the Republican spines have gone with him,” the former CIA director continued. “And there needs to be some reckoning in the Republican Party, [because] we can’t allow this to go on.”

Brennan, a frequent critic of Trump, found himself the target of the Trump administration this month when White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced that Trump was revoking his security clearance.

The White House has indicated that other current and former officials who mostly served in the Obama administration are also under review to have their clearances revoked for what Trump called “politicizing” and “monetizing” their public service.

“Mr. Brennan’s lying and recent conduct characterized by increasingly frenzied commentary is wholly inconsistent with access to the nation’s most closely held secrets and facilities,” the president said in the statement earlier this month.

Brennan fired back, denying the accusations in interviews and writing on Thursday that America was watching the “collapse” of Trump’s presidency.

“I take no delight in seeing the steady collapse of a U.S. Presidency, but I do take strong comfort in knowing that the rule of law & our great government institutions are prevailing. Things ultimately will get better, and we will heal as a Nation,” he tweeted.

I take no delight in seeing the steady collapse of a U.S. Presidency, but I do take strong comfort in knowing that the rule of law & our great government institutions are prevailing. Things ultimately will get better, and we will heal as a Nation.

— John O. Brennan (@JohnBrennan) August 23, 2018

Seems to me he's trying to cover his ass with bullshit and pretending to be a "patriot."

>>21739426

No sauce, but one article said something about Trump revoking his security clearance but seemed to imply that it got stonewalled. Apparently it never actually got revoked because of WH minions.

>>21739430

Further digs.

The Mystery of the Disappearing Security Clearance

President Trump tried to unilaterally strip a CIA director’s security clearance, but it’s still unclear whether he actually did.

By David Frum The Atlantic

On August 15, 2018, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders stepped into the White House briefing room to read a remarkable statement: The president had decided to strip former CIA Director John Brennan of his security clearance. Sanders named other former officials who might soon suffer the same penalty, including former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former FBI Director James Comey, former CIA Director Michael Hayden, former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates, former National-Security Adviser Susan Rice, former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, and the former FBI agents Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and Bruce Ohr.

The motive for the clearance announcement was not concealed: the president’s personal animus against those persons, as declared again and again, especially on Twitter.

“Has anyone looked at the mistakes that John Brennan made while serving as CIA Director? He will go down as easily the WORST in history & since getting out, he has become nothing less than a loudmouth, partisan, political hack who cannot be trusted with the secrets to our country!”

>>21739450

After Brennan, 9 others face losing security clearances, too

==A look at the 10 individuals:

==

JOHN BRENNAN

In a written statement, Trump cited “erratic conduct and behavior” by President Barack Obama’s CIA director as justification for revoking Brennan’s security clearance. Trump also accused Brennan of “lying” and “wild outbursts.” At a news conference last month in Finland, Trump stood alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin and openly questioned U.S. intelligence agencies’ conclusions that Moscow tried to influence the 2016 election in his favor. Afterward, Brennan criticized Trump’s performance as “nothing short of treasonous” and accused him of being “wholly in the pocket of Putin.”

On Wednesday, Brennan tweeted a response to Trump’s decision to revoke his security clearance: “This action is part of a broader effort by Mr. Trump to suppress freedom of speech & punish critics. It should gravely worry all Americans, including intelligence professionals, about the cost of speaking out. My principles are worth far more than clearances. I will not relent.”

JAMES CLAPPER

Clapper served Obama as director of national intelligence and has held key positions in the U.S. intelligence community. He has been critical of Trump and told CNN on Wednesday that he has no plans to stop speaking out when he’s asked for his views on the Trump administration.

“If they’re saying that the only way I can speak is to be in an adulation mode of this president, I’m sorry. I don’t think I can sign up to that,” Clapper said.

JAMES COMEY

Trump fired Comey from his post as FBI director in May 2017 over the bureau’s Russia investigation. Comey had also announced in July 2016 that the FBI would not recommend charges against Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton for her email practices as Obama’s secretary of state. Trump believes the investigation was handled unfairly because of what he alleges is political bias against him at the FBI. Comey does not have a security clearance; Trump said Comey may not be able to have it reinstated.

On Wednesday, Comey tweeted a statement that said, in part: “Once again this president is sending a message that he will punish people who disagree with him and reward those who praise him. In a democracy, security clearances should not be used as pawns in a petty political game to distract voters from even bigger problems.”

MICHAEL HAYDEN

The veteran U.S. intelligence official is a former director of the National Security Agency, principal deputy director of national intelligence and a past CIA director. He’s also been critical of the president. Hayden said last month when the White House first issued the security clearance threat that losing it wouldn’t affect what he says or writes.

He published a book this year called “The Assault on Intelligence: American National Security in an Age of Lies.”

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SALLY YATES

Trump fired Yates early in 2017 after she refused to enforce the new president’s ban on travel to the U.S. by residents of several mostly Muslim countries. Yates served in the Obama administration and had agreed to stay in the job under Trump. She also had informed the White House that Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, was potentially compromised because of his contacts with Russian officials. Trump allowed Flynn to keep his security clearance after Yates’ disclosure but later fired Flynn, citing misstatements he said Flynn made to Vice President Mike Pence.

Referring to Trump’s summit with Putin, Yates tweeted, “Our President today not only chose a tyrant over his own Intel community, he chose Russia’s interests over the country he is sworn to protect.” Last December she tweeted, “The FBI is in “tatters”? No. The only thing in tatters is the President’s respect for the rule of law.”

SUSAN RICE

Rice was national security adviser during Obama’s second term and has criticized Trump policies. She wrote an op-ed for The New York Times in July, saying the U.S. had “so much to lose and so little to gain” from the Trump-Putin summit — “given this very atypical US President,” she added in a tweet.

ANDREW McCABE

McCabe is a former FBI deputy director who led the investigation into Clinton’s email practices. Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired McCabe this year after FBI disciplinary officials and the Justice Department concluded he hadn’t been candid during an inspector general investigation. Trump has alleged bias in the email investigation because McCabe’s wife, Jill, ran as a Democrat for the Virginia state Senate in 2015 and accepted a campaign contribution from a longtime Clinton ally. But McCabe didn’t become involved in the Clinton probe until after his wife’s bid for elected office.

PETER STRZOK

The longtime FBI agent was recently fired from the bureau, his lawyer said this week. Strzok had worked on the Mueller investigation but was removed after anti-Trump text messages that Strzok exchanged with an FBI lawyer became public. Trump has used the text messages to buttress his claims that the FBI is biased against him.

Strzok’s lawyer, Aitan Goelman, said in a statement Wednesday that security clearances shouldn’t be taken away as a means of “punishing people who have criticized the President, or coercing others into silence.” He said by stripping Brennan’s clearance and threatening others with the same fate, “the President has taken us down one more step on the path toward authoritarianism.”

LISA PAGE

Page is the former FBI lawyer who exchanged anti-Trump text messages with Strzok. Trump has begun referring to Page as the “lovely Lisa Page” in his tweets about the Russia investigation.

BRUCE OHR

The Justice Department official has come under Republican scrutiny for his contacts with Glenn Simpson, co-founder of Fusion GPS. The opposition research firm hired former British spy Christopher Steele during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign to compile a dossier of information on Trump and his ties to Russia. Ohr’s wife, Nellie, worked for Fusion GPS during the campaign — a fact Trump has tweeted about in recent days to highlight his assertions of political bias as motivation for the Russia investigation.