Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., chastised President Trump for considering revoking the security clearances of ex-government officials who have been critical of his administration, calling it a “banana republic kind of thing.”
“I can’t even believe that somebody at the White House thought up something like this,” Corker told MSNBC on Tuesday. “I mean, when you’re going to start taking retribution against people who are your political enemies in this manner, that’s the kind of thing that happens in Venezuela, where I was just recently. You just don’t do that.”
[Opinion: Trump has the authority to revoke security clearances. Should he?]
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters Monday the president is mulling revoking the security clearances of six former national security and intelligence officials: former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former FBI Director Jim Comey, former National Security Agency Director Michael Hayden, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and former national security adviser Susan Rice.
Sanders said the ex-officials are “politicizing” and “monetizing” their access to classified information and Trump is “exploring the mechanisms” to strip them of their security clearances.
A spokeswoman for McCabe, however, said his security clearance was “deactivated” after he was fired by Attorney General Jeff Sessions in March. Comey, too, reportedly has not had a security clearance for roughly a year. The former FBI director was fired from his post in May 2017.
[James Comey, Andrew McCabe appear to lack security clearances the White House threatened to revoke]
Corker, who leads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he was surprised the White House “even allowed it to be aired,” and called the suggestion that Trump revoke security clearances of his political opponents “a banana republic kind of thing.”
