Former CIA Director John Brennan might want to rethink his threat to sue President Trump over the loss of his security clearance because such a lawsuit would likely fail, Ted Cruz opined Monday.
“I would find it hard to imagine that any individual would have a viable claim against the federal government for denying a security clearance,” the Texas Republican senator said in an interview with the Washington Examiner. “Particularly when you were no longer serving in the position for which you were granted a clearance.”
Brennan, one of the most rhetorically-aggressive of Trump’s critics, lost his clearance last week. Trump’s team argued that the revocation was necessary due to the “erratic conduct” of the Obama-era spy chief, who accused the president of “treasonous” behavior after Trump’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
[More: Trump dares Brennan to sue over his revoked security clearance]
“At this point in my administration, any benefits that senior officials might glean from consultations with Mr. Brennan are now outweighed by the risks posed by his erratic conduct and behavior,” Trump said in a statement provided last week by the White House press secretary.
Trump’s move against Brennan drew bipartisan accusations that the president is abusing his power to punish a political opponent.
“Without having some kind of tangible reasons for doing so, which there may be that I’m not aware of, I don’t like it at all,” Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said last week. “It just feels like sort of a … banana republic kind of thing.”
Others have been at least understanding of Trump’s frustration. “I’m not sure there’s evidence that anybody has misused it, but I do believe that former CIA Director John Brennan abused his privilege,” Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said in an appearance on Fox News on Sunday. “When you are an ex-CIA director and you are going on all the cable news shows and acting as partisan as he has and accusing the president of the United States of treasonous behavior, high crimes and misdemeanors. Last time I checked, treason was punishable by death.”
Brennan later maintained that he didn’t mean for the treason accusation to be taken literally, leading one of his colleagues to criticize such hyperbole.
“The common denominator among all of us that have been speaking up, though, is genuine concern about the jeopardy or threats to our institutions and values,” James Clapper, who served as Director of National Intelligence in the Obama administration, said in an interview with CNN. “But John and his rhetoric have become, I think, an issue in and of itself.”
Clapper is among the other former government officials who might lose their clearances, according to the White House, along with former FBI Director James Comey, former national security adviser Susan Rice, and fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. That’s part of the motive for a potential suit, according to Brennan.
“A number of lawyers have reached out to say that there is a very strong case here, not so much to reclaim mine but to prevent this from happening in the future,” Brennan said.
Cruz, who had a notable legal career before running for political office, allowed that he hasn’t “studied the precise legal question.”
[Related: Rudy Giuliani taunts John Brennan about taking legal action over security clearance revocation]
