Was Adm. McRaven Always “Weird”?

[tonyz]

Rather than start a new thread - article below deals with Brennan - which provoked McRaven’s comments.

Some thoughts on Brennan’s security clearance revocation.

John Brennan’s Security Clearance

By VICTOR DAVIS HANSON
August 16, 2018 10:29 AM
National Review

Scarier than former CIA chief John Brennan losing his security clearance is the idea that he ever had one in the first place.

Perhaps to avoid the appearance of partisanship in pulling the security clearances of former intelligence chiefs, the Trump administration should now abide by some sort of universal nonpartisan standard. I suggest that the following sort of improper conduct, either during or after one’s tenure, might result in the loss of a security clearance:

1) Lying to Congress. Brennan lied to Congress on at least two occasions (cf. his denial of CIA surveillance of Senate staffer computers and the claim of an absence of collateral damage in drone attacks), and perhaps three (his absurd denial of knowledge of the seeding of the Steele dossier among government agencies). Democrats used to be outraged by Brennan’s deceit, and a few in the past had called for his resignation. Note that James Clapper, former director of National Intelligence, has also misled Congress, concerning NSA surveillance of American citizens. Clapper has admitted such (e.g., “the least untruthful” answer). Not lying to Congress is a pretty low bar to meet.

2) Accusations of Treason against a Sitting President. Brennan believes his denial of continued access to intelligence is an infringement on free speech. But it is really another low bar to ask a former CIA director to refrain from leveling unproven charges of treason against the current president of the United States (“nothing short of treasonous”; “When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history”). Such invective in theory could have foreign-policy consequences by branding the slander of presidential disloyalty with an imprimatur of a CIA security clearance.

Note again that James Clapper similarly flat-out accused the president of the United States of treason, in being a spy for the Russians (“I think this past weekend is illustrative of what a great case officer Vladimir Putin is. He knows how to handle an asset, and that’s what he’s doing with the president”). Clapper, of course, has no proof of that low charge. Nor has he produced any after his on-air accusation. If he is suggesting that his security clearance has allowed him access to incriminating evidence, then he should say so.

3) Hired Political Commentary. Former intelligence chiefs certainly have a perfect right to offer their expertise, even enhanced by their current security clearances, against or in support of a current administration, on both foreign-policy and intelligence challenges, and as guest experts on television, radio, social media, and in print.

That said, hiring oneself out as a political partisan to a network should be a different matter.

Had Brennan and Clapper now and then visited the networks to voice their concern about Trump’s cancellation of the Iran deal or moving the American embassy to Jerusalem, it would be one thing. But going on salary with MSNBC and CNN to profit from one’s emeritus status and security clearances to libel the president of the United States removes all appearances of disinterested commentary. As private citizens, they can do all that on their own time without any vestigial connections to the U.S. government.

An added note. When an intelligence official finds himself in a self-created mess, Washington agencies often have a tendency to rush to support of one of their own. But Brennan has long had a dubious record.

He dramatically reinvented himself after the 2008 election from Bush point man on terror alerts (cf. the “Orange Terror alert” of 2003), renditions, and enhanced interrogations — to Obama aficionado, now shocked, in Casablanca-style, by such supposedly clumsy and less nuanced methods that he once had endorsed.
When one collates Brennan’s politicized and often incoherent explanations on a number of key intelligence matters in various capacities between 2009 and 2016 (on the circumstances surrounding Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a.k.a. the “underwear bomber,” his confusing and changing narratives surrounding the bin Laden raid, and his bizarre and careerist-inspired description of jihad: “Nor do we describe our enemy as ‘jihadists’ or ‘Islamists’ because jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one’s community”), the portrait of a political contortionist rather than a professional and disinterested intelligence officer is confirmed.

All that can be said in condolence to John Brennan about losing his security clearance might be something along the lines of, “Try not to lie repeatedly to the U.S. Congress. Please do not allege that the current president of the United States is a traitor. And do not hire yourself out to partisans to issue near daily unproven invective, supposedly sanctified and monetized by your past tenure and present access to the highest level of covert U.S. intelligence.”

That was not too much to ask.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corne...ce-revocation/

[bblhead672]

Originally Posted by Joker

Most folks do not keep their clearance when they leave the “need to know” position unless they are going to another “need to know” position.

The reason some high ranking folks keep theirs is they come back to advise the folks that replaced them.

None of these assclowns will be asked to come back and advise this cabinet. C-ya! (as in good bye)

Exactly! I tried to explain this to a Never Trumper on another site, but alas all he can see is Trump did something thus it is bad. My post copied below:

Bbblhd672: There’s this concept in classified materials and information security called “need to know.” None of those ex-government employees/appointees/etc have a continuing “need to know” classified information. Thus, there should be no outrage over their security clearances being revoked, especially if there is any indication they are using that access without need to know.
As a submarine radioman I had a Top Secret, Special Intelligence clearance. The day I was no longer a service member my need to know went away. My former colleagues in the radio room could no longer discuss any of the classified information we had discussed previously because I no longer had the need to know, despite still having a TS/SI clearance. However my obligation to never reveal any classified information has not and will never go away.

His response:

You've missed the point. High level security officials have clearance to support the ongoing intelligence projects with their experience. But hey, let's just ignore history and see how that goes.

He (and all the other lefties) just cannot accept that someone who no longer has a job requiring access shouldn't have a security clearance.
Retired, fired, whatever the reason for not having the job any longer equals no security clearance.
If the President needs someone to advise him and the Cabinet then the security clearance can be restored.

[tom kelly]

LOOK'S LIKE McRAVEN IS READY FOR THE U S SENATE???? HE CAN REPLACE SENATOR JOHN McCAIN, IF HE COULD GET ELECTED ????
tom kelly

[TWITCHY]

[QUOTE=
Retired, fired, whatever the reason for not having the job any longer equals no security clearance.
If the President needs someone to advise him and the Cabinet then the security clearance can be restored.[/QUOTE]

This was my “layman’s” understanding of security clearances, which is why I don’t see the need for him to maintain a clearance. Especially, as others have said, Brennan is certainly not advising Trump’s cabinet and, therefore, has no “need to know”.

Also, the fact McRaven was chancellor of Texas University is just icing on the cake and par for the course.

[Joker]

Originally Posted by Streck-Fu

From my experience, most clearances are not actively revoked when people leave the position requiring it. Rather, they lose access to he systems and information but the DIA does not spend manpower to close or revoke a clearance.

With TS being reverified every 5 years and Secret every 10, once the investigation is completed and the clearance granted, no further action is required unless disqualifying information is disclosed.

The media inference that person that leaves a position requiring access classified information may retain access to those systems after leaving that position is false and a mischaracterization of how it actually works.

When they retire, they turn in the CAC and the SIPR access gets turned off but the Clearance remains on active until it expires.

Not accurate with TS add-one. You leave, you are read-off, unless your new job requires them.

[Surf n Turf]

Originally Posted by Joker

Not accurate with TS add-one. You leave, you are read-off, unless your new job requires them.

Correct !

For TS / SCI You are "read-off" and "debriefed" on anything you were "read-on" too, and you get to re-review your NDA's to set firmly in your mind what you no-longer know or can remember.

If you are gainfully re-employed in a short period of time (5 years ?) your former clearance is in place, but you still have to be "read-on" to anything new, and sign newly composed, newer NDA's for your reading pleasure.

SnT

[SouthernDZ]

While living in the vicinity of Fort Sam Houston, I made the two-hour drive up to Fort Hood monthly to see my daughter stationed there. Unfortunately my travels took me past UT in the People's Republic of Austin, an island of blue in a completely red state. I think living in and around the assholes that reside in Austin would more than explain ADM McRaven's actions and state of mind.

[TWITCHY]

Originally Posted by SouthernDZ

While living in the vicinity of Fort Sam Houston, I made the two-hour drive up to Fort Hood monthly to see my daughter stationed there. Unfortunately my travels took me past UT in the People's Republic of Austin, an island of blue in a completely red state. I think living in and around the assholes that reside in Austin would more than explain ADM McRaven's actions and state of mind.

I have no doubt about that! Unfortunately, my new career is moving me there; however, I have 39 years of conservative upbringing to insulate me and my family from the “weirdness”. And, we will not be living in Austin, either.

[WarriorDiplomat]

Originally Posted by TWITCHY

Did Adm. McRaven’s time in Austin make him a “weird”, Trump-hating liberal or was he always that way? Forgive me for the source.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/16/polit...oke/index.html

He was an Obama Admiral......he would not have sat in that position for 3 years under Obama without supporting his destructive policies on the force and the mission I say that because everyone up and down the chain was seeing the damage and the ones who were ardent conservatives and understood the damage being done to our country, troops, and allies were speaking up or doing something contrary to POTUS policy that conflicted with his desired endstate resulting in over 200 High Ranking officers being fired over that administration and McRaven stuck it out for 3 years......2+2 is still 4 all the signs and indicators are there now and was then just like Votel will IMO come out as a liberal when he has fullfilled his own desire if he goes no further than CENTCOM.

[tonyz]

Some additional insight into Brennan (who really was the subject of McRaven’s rant).

He plays the pitiful political hack and shabby radical to the end.

American Spectator
George Neumayr
August 17, 2018, 12:05 am

The real story about John Brennan’s security clearance is not that he lost it under a Republican president but that he once got one. One of the peculiar footnotes of Brennan’s history is that he obtained a position in Bill Casey’s CIA after having supported the Soviet-backed American Communist Party at the height of the Cold War. Had Casey conducted the polygraph test in which Brennan admitted to voting for Soviet proxy Gus Hall in 1976, Casey would have tossed him out of the office. Casey hated communists. Whoever hired Brennan must have been a Deep State holdover from the Carter years.

All of Brennan’s propaganda about “Trump-Russian collusion” is just sour grapes over the loss of his preferred candidate, Hillary, for whom he was desperately auditioning by launching an unfounded investigation into her opponent, and a remnant of his pro-Soviet nostalgia. Brennan’s much-vaunted “conscience” was pricked not by Soviet leaders who slaughtered their own people and enslaved hapless nations but by a Russian leader who — brace yourselves — isn’t keen on postmodern Western propaganda in favor of gay rights. Brennan prided himself on his “commitment” to alternative lifestyles and would pad down the halls of the CIA in a “rainbow lanyard,” as Bill Gertz once reported. Putin’s refusal to hold “gay pride” parades in Moscow infuriated Brennan. He also didn’t care for Putin’s unsentimental approach to Islamic terrorism. Brennan defined jihad as “self-improvement” and lobbied Obama to embrace the fanatics of the Muslim Brotherhood. Brennan got his wish when the Obama-backed Morsi rose to power in Egypt and wrecked it.

Michael Flynn thought that Brennan was a PC jackass of the first order, in thrall to the Muslims with whom he had traveled to Mecca during his stint as station chief in Saudi Arabia. Brennan got his revenge on Flynn by unleashing on him Stefan Halper, the vaguely pro-Republican oaf and Cambridge con man the Obama administration hired to spy on Trumpworld. Halper reported to his friends in British intelligence that Flynn in 2014 had been seen at a Cambridge University forum fraternizing with a Russian historian. That morsel of half-baked gossip was then fed to Brennan. In 2015, the British and presumably Halper kept bird-dogging Flynn. Part of Brennan’s “Trump-Russian collusion” fetish feeds off his hatred for Flynn, who had criticized the Obama administration for pursuing a pointlessly anachronistic course against Putin. Islamic terrorism, not Russian nationalism, threatened the vital national interests of America, argued Flynn. Brennan stewed over this disagreement and exacted his revenge on Flynn through Justice Department official Sally Yates, a Democratic hack who had joined the anti-Trump ring in the Obama administration along with her subordinate Bruce Ohr and fellow saboteur Peter Strzok.

The only criticism that Trump deserves for yanking Brennan’s security clearance is its delay. He should have done it on day one. Brennan was a security risk from the start — an anti-American radical of staggering proportions who should never have been permitted within a hundred-mile radius of Langley. Putin, Trump once said, is “laughing his ass off” at the mayhem dolts like Brennan have caused. Putin is also no doubt laughing at the spectacle of a former communist rising to the top of the CIA, then conducting in his retirement an attempted coup against a patriotic president on the claimed grounds that he is insufficiently hostile to Mother Russia.

Like the execrable Peter Strzok, with whom he conspired to “stop” candidate Trump, Brennan sputters about Trump as a “Russian asset.” But if anyone qualifies as a useful idiot for the Russians, it is Brennan. At the most critical moments in the Cold War, he was rooting for the Reds. He has gone from demanding “détente” to forbidding it, from raging about “McCarthyism” to impersonating it. Brennan never grew up. In his youth, he clamored for the overthrow of an American president; nothing has changed in his dotage. He is still vowing to sabotage an American president, and indulges the adolescent delusion that he somehow speaks for the proletariat, insisting that it will “defeat” Trump.

Samantha Powers, another lefty drip in Obama’s anti-Trump ring, warned Trump that he shouldn’t risk the wrath of Brennan. Who knows, implied Powers, what he might do? In taking away Brennan’s security clearance, Trump just took Powers at her word.

https://spectator.org/john-brennan-a...rom-the-start/

[lindy]

Originally Posted by bblhead672

Exactly! I tried to explain this to a Never Trumper on another site, but alas all he can see is Trump did something thus it is bad. My post copied below:



His response:


He (and all the other lefties) just cannot accept that someone who no longer has a job requiring access shouldn't have a security clearance.
Retired, fired, whatever the reason for not having the job any longer equals no security clearance.
If the President needs someone to advise him and the Cabinet then the security clearance can be restored.

Director Haspel, a career Intel officer, doesn’t need or require Brennan’s “help” with anything. Americans are safer with his departure from the IC. His true colors are now finally on display for all to see and are no longer hidden behind his notifications to the workforce.

[WarriorDiplomat]

Originally Posted by lindy

Director Haspel, a career Intel officer, doesn’t need or require Brennan’s “help” with anything. Americans are safer with his departure from the IC. His true colors are now finally on display for all to see and are no longer hidden behind his notifications to the workforce.

Gina Haspel was impressive in her confirmation hearings.....she was the boss.....too smart for the committee's herding game....she reminded me of my mother in her disposition and physical looks even.....but anyone who served Obama willingly IMO is compromised idealistically and worse yet not necessarily as qualified as they should be because in Obama administration it appears loyalty to country was not near as important as loyalty and shared vision with an Obama America

[lindy]

Originally Posted by WarriorDiplomat

... anyone who served Obama willingly IMO is compromised idealistically and worse yet not necessarily as qualified as they should be because in Obama administration it appears loyalty to country was not near as important as loyalty and shared vision with an Obama America

There is a large number of people in the IC that consider those two positions the same. There are still many patriots too but something must happen when career employees get elevated to the executive service: they lose sense of WHO we serve and apparently care more about leaving their mark on the org.

After 8 years of BHO, we, in general, act like an abused child after to do anything unless we do it together (via working groups) in order to avoid responsibility for decision making and blame it on “bureaucracy”.

Folks who advocate for “speed, surprise, and violence of action” are quickly sidelined as cowboys.

[JJ_BPK]

Originally Posted by miclo18d

Why would you open your pie hole and walk yourself into a well laid ambush killzone?

Imagine if you will

A retired military swamp critter hoping to be a future POTUS candidate
Aspiring to be the LEFT'S #1 FAG(former action guy) boy with a chance to beat 45
Looking for a blessing from fellow swamp rats like Clinton.
Looking to curry favours from the Kalifornacate elites
Looking for a bazillion bucks donner like Sores
Looking for more than 15 minutes on MSM

I can see a bunch of reasons to make stupid statements that piss off the Right,
while at the same time piling up at-a-boys from the Left

[Golf1echo]

I see references and attacks from these guys against President Trump about and based on the analogy of McCarthyism... Maybe they should think that through some as what comes to my mind when coming across those inferences is General MacArthur's presidential notions. It is a rare case when the American people would trust and support a military leader that has undermined the office of the president...the perception is normally one of a coup.