https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/08/18/mattis-a-security-clearance-is-granted-on-an-as-needed-basis/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis expressed solidarity with President Trump’s stripping of former Obama CIA Director John Brennan’s security clearance earlier this week.

“All I can tell you is, I have taken security clearances away from people in my previous time in uniform, and a security clearance is something that is granted on an as-needed basis,” he told Pentagon reporters traveling with him in South America on Friday.

The comment came in response to a question on what he thought about former intelligence officials denouncing the president for stripping Brennan’s security clearance.

Earlier this week, retired Navy Adm. Bill McRaven published a letter criticizing the president for stripping Brennan’s security clearance and asking him to take away his as well.

Trump critics hoped that the op-ed by McRaven, the Navy SEAL commander who oversaw the raid to get Osama Bin Laden during the Obama administration, would prompt other national security figures to denounce the president.