Trump says he'd welcome a suit from Brennan over clearance revocation

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Monday he hopes former CIA Director John Brennan will follow through with a potential lawsuit against his administration, a day after the Obama-era intelligence chief said he was considering legal action in response to Trump’s revocation of his security clearance.

“I hope John Brennan, the worst CIA Director in our country’s history, brings a lawsuit,” Trump tweeted Monday morning. “It will then be very easy to get all of his records, texts, emails and documents to show not only the poor job he did, but how he was involved with the Mueller Rigged Witch Hunt. He won’t sue!”

Brennan, in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, said he has been contacted by a number of lawyers since Trump announced he was stripping the former CIA director of his security clearance last week. The president said the move was due in part to what he called Brennan’s “increasingly frenzied commentary” on cable television, but Brennan has said the move was designed to silence Trump’s critics.

Brennan told NBC News that lawyers have advised him on the possibility of filing a complaint or an injunction aimed at preventing “Trump from doing this in the future” as the president continues to weigh the possibility of revoking more security clearances of other former Obama administration officials who have largely been critical of his presidency.

“If my clearances and my reputation, as I’m being pulled through the mud now, if that’s the price we’re going to pay to prevent Donald Trump from doing this against other people, to me it’s a small price to pay,” Brennan said. “I am going to do whatever I can personally to try to prevent these abuses in the future and if it means going to court, I will do that.”

Trump, who has received an onslaught of pushback from former national security officials over stripping Brennan of his clearance, said officials were looking to preserve their clearances because “it’s worth great prestige and big dollars, even board seats.”

Traditionally, national security officials have been able to retain their clearances to allow current administration officials to consult with their predecessors over high level matters that carry over from one presidency to the next.

On Monday, 177 former national security officials released a letter calling on Trump to reconsider his push for more revocations.

“All of us believe it is critical to protect classified information from unauthorized disclosure,” wrote members of the group which includes former CIA analysts, ambassadors and Justice Department officials. “But we believe equally strongly that former government officials have the right to express their unclassified views on what they see as critical national security issues without fear of being punished for doing so.”