Transcripts For CNNW CNN Newsroom With John Berman And Poppy

Sarah sanders asserted brennan lost his access to highly Sensitive Information because of his erratic conduct. Mr. Brennans line and recent conduct characterized by increasingly frenzied commentary is wholly inconsistent with action to the nations most closely held secrets and facilities. The very aim of our adversaries, which is to sow division and chaos. Well, later yesterday in an interview with the wall street journal, the president gave a more revealing explanation of why he chose to revoke brennans security clearance saying that brennan is among the obama era officials that he blamed for the russia probe. Heres what the president told the journal i call it the rigged witchhunt, its a sham and these people led it so i think its something that had to be done. Lets go to abby phillip who joins me at the white house. A few question this is morning because as youve heard and pointed out a number of pundits are saying this is President Trump repeating a similar pattern of behavior that he exhibited after firing james comey, telling one things to reporters, to the press, after he has his own officials go out and give a different line of reasoning. Any attempt from the white house to reconcile the two . It seems like an almost parallel situation in which the white house goes to Great Lengths to lay out the reasons why John Brennans security clearance was being revoked. Sarah sanders said erratic behavior was the reason, using his clearance for politically motivated purposes or perhaps profit but then the president keeps it simple. In this interview the journal, he says its a rigged witchhunt. This is similar to what the president did after comey was fired. The white house said he was fired because of his treatment during Hillary Clinton during the campaign, that was unfair to her. Later the president told nbc in an interview that he was fired because he thought about the russia what he called a witchhunt and said something needed to be done about it. He thought it was unfair to him. So poppy the white house is struggling to reconcile these two but its notable that Sarah Sanders was asked are you going to apply the same standard that you used to apply to john brennan against all of these other people she listed off that they are considering revoking their clearances. She wouldnt say that they would do that. Right, thats a great point. Also this list of sort of threats i guess, threats that they might revoke security clearance for includes some new names, different from what the white house had previously been talking about about a month ago. It includes names like bruce orr, someone who is going to testify before congress in just a few weeks. What ties together all of those new names that have been added. This is significant. Bruceor that you just mentioned, he is a current official working in trumps government right now so thats that makes even more unclear what is going to happen to his clearance if the president does revoke it. But the white house added sally yates, former trump official in the justice department, they added peter strzok, lisa page and bruce ohr. Peter strzok, lisa page and bruce ohr are all People Associated with the russia probe in some way. They are all people that the president has attacked on social media, criticized in some cases in peter strzok and lisa pages case for their criticism of him but it really does seem to be a slight change for the white house instead of talking about former obamaera officials that are critical of him, they are adding people who the president has zeroed in on as being associated with the russia probe. Important point. Abby, thank you for the reporting. Lets talk about the intelligence aspects. With me, a couple cia veterans, Cnn National Security analyst Elliot Ackerman and from the Heritage Foundation and former cia Department Division chief bruce clinger. Thank you for being here. Bruce, lets listen to what Michael Hayden said last night to anderson cooper. The white house just messaged the entire American Intelligence Community if you stand up and say things that upset the president or with which we disagrees he will punish you. Is hayden right . Is this a threat to others to be quiet . Well, those still in the Intelligence Community would not be consulting with or talking with the media, they would be wary about interaction with the media so it would seem to apply more to those who left the Intelligence Community and speaking out as n a political way. When you look at what brennan wrote in the New York Times opinion piece, its quite an accusation and he doesnt lay out the intelligence that gets him to that. He says the president s claims of no collusion are hogwash and he goes on to say there is no question that there was collusion on the part of the trump team. He says the only question that remains are whether the collusion took place that constitutes criminal liable conspiracy, whether obstruction of justice occurred and how many members of Trump Incorporated attempted to defraud the government by laundering and concealing the movement of the money into their pockets. Momentous or reckless assertion by brennan . I think whats momentous here is the true collusion seems to be on the far right and the far left and were seeing a level of hyperpartisanship affect our institutions like the fbi, like the cia, and that undermining of these long held institutions which have always been nonpartisan is what is momentous and its discouraging to see. The real losers here, frankly, are the American People because we dont know if Going Forward we will have a truly depoliticized intelligence service. Bruce brennans assertion that i just read in the times that its hogwash to say theres no collusion, this coming from the man who led the cia. Is it momentous, is it reckless of him . Well, the revoking of the clearance is executive order 12968 identifies what procedures for accessing or maintaining or revoking security procedures and then there are adjudication guidelines identifying what areas one would lose clearances for and none of those seem to be applicable in this case so it raised the perception that its politically driven. Im asking you what brennan is saying, the assertion hes making about collusion on the part of the president. What do you make of that . Well, the whole russia investigation is a long standing investigation thats going its way through the mueller team, et cetera. So we dont know the results of that until they come out with indications one way or the othe other. When you look at why former intelligence officials have their clearance its not just as the white house said to monetize on it. Its to help current intelligence agencies, to help people currently working in the cia, to be able to pull on your expertise from things you have lived and worked through and led on. Some are pointing out that what the president has done here actually just hurts his own cia now. Do you agree with that assessment . I certainly agree with that assessment and i think what were seeing is unprecedented actions on both sides of this argument. What the president is doing by threatening these mass revocations of security clearances is unprecedented. Weve never seen a president do that before. In the case of john brennan, were seeing a cia director be more aggressive, more political than weve ever seen before in the history of cia directors and the resip rerociprocareciprocalp with institutions that function best when they are depoliticized and its a poisoning of the culture. What. Bruce, what does it tell you that the president and the white house did not consult with the director of National Intelligence dan coats and that according to our reporting, the cia was caught off guard. Well, the normal procedures would be an agency head or the special executive would make the determination to revoke someones clearance so as mr. Ackerman said, this seems to be unprecedented, im not aware of a president revoking clearances personally in the past. But during my time in the Intelligence Community, i found the analysis was very fiercely apolitical, fiercely nonideological. The intelligence analysts call t i like they see it, theyre providing information to policymakers to enable them to make the best policy decisions possible on behalf of the United States. So once people leave the Intelligence Community they can intersize their First Amendment rights and we can discuss and debate any statements that former officials make. And elliot, isnt that what brennan is doing as a private citizen no longer leading the agency . Saying look, the way you handle yourself on the world stage in he helsinki was tantamount to treasonous. Thats not him saying in the his official capacity. Hes a former agent. Certainly but i think theres also precedent and the precedent is that the directors of cia are brought in very, very closely to administrations, they handle significant Sensitive Information for sensitive decisions so if we have a precedent by which former cia directors are extremely vocal of the Outgoing Administration the counteradministration youll wind up with a changed intelligence culture and a highly politicized intelligence apparatus in the country so is it ultimately worth it . The American People should not fall into the trap of trying to ascribe blame, is brennan wrong, is trump wrong. Its like when you have two parents going through a divorce and theyre yelling at each other in the house. It doesnt matter who is right. What matters is the trauma inflicted on the kids sitting in the house. No one is discussing this. This is poisoning the well of what these institutions are supposed to do in this country. Elliot ackerman and bruce clinger. Thank you for being with me. We are going to talk with the politics of this ahead. Minutes from now, jury deliberations kick off in the fraud trial for extrump Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort. This is a major test for the special counsel bob mueller and well take you live outside the courtroom in minutes. Also, hundreds of u. S. Newspapers this morning band together with one message we are not the enemy of the people. All this on the same day that the president tweets the Fake News Media is the opposition party. He just wrote that minutes ago. And emergency workers could hardly keep up. Person after person dropping in a connecticut park in one day, more than 0 peop70 people overd on what is believed to be synthetic marijuana. We have the latest. Zheimers asn is going to make it happen by funding scientific breakthroughs, advancing public policy, and providing local support to those living with the disease and their caregivers. But we wont get there without you. Join the fight with the Alzheimers Association. 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Your digestive system has billions of bacteria, but life can throw them off balance. Realign yourself, with align probiotic. And try new align gummies, with prebiotics and probiotics to help support digestive health. Back to our top story, mixed reaction from lawmakers on capitol hill about the president s decision to strip former cia director john brennan of his security clearance. Some lawmakers are calling it a nixonian move in an effort to silence his critics. Others support him. Lauren fox joins me with more. Lets start with the president s critic which is, by the way, its not just democrats. Some republican senators are calling him out on this. Senator mark warner, the leading democrat on the Senate Intelligence committee called it, like you said, nixonian. He said the President Donald Trump is just trying to distract the american public. But susan collins, a moderate republican from from maine said the move was unwise and senator bob corker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said it was a Banana Republic kind of thing. So a lot of criticism even from on the republicans. What senators are endorsing this move . Well, rand paul a republican from kentucky sent out one of the strongest statements. He said he pushed President Trump to revoke brennans security clearance. In 2013 he filibustered brennans nomination to lead the say yay and that was during the Obama Administration but senator john kennedy, a republican from louisiana had this to say about john brennan. Hes been totally political. I think i called him a butthead and i meant it. I think hes given the national Intelligence Community a bad name. So as you can hear, there is a lot of reaction from republicans who say that theyre okay with this move. I would expect most republicans are going to be standing with the president , poppy. You just leave it to john kennedy for the colorful language of the day. Lauren fox, let us know what else youre hearing. Lets discuss with karoun demirjian. Ladi ladies, to you first. When you look at what the president told the wall street journal in this impromptu 20 minute Oval Office Interview last night about why brennans security clearance was revoked i call it the rigged witchhunt, its a sham. These people led it so something has to be done. Why does he do stuff like this . What you have here as you also had in the situation with the firing of james comey is his aides around him trying to craft what would be a defensible rationale for something that the president cannot be talked out of, that he is intent upon doing. We saw when the white house put out this statement after Sarah Sanders read it at the briefing yesterday, it was dated july 26, that was a few days after that this meeting he had with rand paul where senator paul suggested he yank brennans clearance and clearly President Trump was intrigued with this idea and wanted to do it. So they sort of construct this whole rational around how you could do this. Youre the president , you have to ultimate role in protecting classified information but then when it comes down to it and hes asked about why hes doing it, the president says what he thinks and hes said this before time and again that he considers mike hayden, clapper, comey to be political hacks. And all of these conclusions that the Intelligence Community has republiced, all of these this information the Law Enforcement community has put forth, he considers it to be personal politically motivated attacks against him not intelligence gathering or National Security work. Karoun what do you think of the times brennan saying saying there was no question there was collusion on the part of the trump team before the Mueller Probe is wrapped up does that go to the white house argument that this is highly politicized . Brennan is no longer serving in the role he was serving in the Intelligence Community so he can speak freely and he has been. Hes been critical based on his experience as a high ranking Intelligence Officer and hes not backing down from that because he got slapped across the face so its not anything different if you would have had to have taken those actions since he retired since hes been out there commentating and pulling no punches opinions about thinking the president and the way hes talking about it is undermight being the United States. So i think if you think this is a great conspiracy starting with going down to muellers probe and you continue to think that so everyone is sticking with their camps which is fairly its extreme to this sort of thing because political statements are not usually considered grounds for revoking security clearance. There has to be something much more severe. You guys know obviously a name that is not on this list, a name that jumps out because its not on this list. That is former National Security Michael Flynn who is a convicted felon, fired by the president for lying to the fbi, whom president obama did not revoke his security clearance despite him chanting lock her up about Hillary Clinton on stage, despite him warning incoming