Reporters Grill Sarah Sanders on Targeting Security Clearances of Trump’s Political Enemies
At Wednesday’s White House press briefing, Press Secretary Sarah Sanders read a statement from President Trump announcing the revoking of former CIA Director John Brennan‘s security credentials. After the announcement, several reporters grilled Sanders over the cause, and implications, of the decision.
ABC’s Jon Karl first asked the obvious question, and elephant in the room, about the revocation being political retaliation. “It seems live everybody you’ve mentioned has been a political critic of the president. Is he going after political opponents with this?”
“No if there were others that weren’t, that we deemed necessary we would certainly take a look and review those as well,” said Sanders.
There were several other similar interactions, in each Sanders did not answer any of the specifics asked by reportes.
Jeff Mason of Reuters asked a two-part question, neither part of which garnered a full response.
MASON: How is this announcement by the president, how can Americans not interpret that as a getting back against his critics, and isn’t it also an attempt to curtail their freedom of speech by penalizing them for being critical on television?
SANDERS: Not at all. The president has a constitutional responsibility to protect classified information and who has access to it. And that’s what he is doing is fulfilling that responsibility in this action. This is actually specific to Mr. Brennan and the others are currently under review.
MASON: Is this the kind of precedent he wants to set for future presidents when his administration is out of office, and why are there no Republicans on that list?
SANDERS: Once again, if we deemed it necessary, we would certainly look into that and be happy to look into those.
Justin Sink of Bloomberg had an equal lack of success in eliciting specific responses from Sanders.
SINK: I guess the reason people would say that this argument strains credibility is there’s obvious examples even from this administration – your former national security advisor admitted to lying to the FBI – why is this only a list of Democrats who have been critical of the administration, and why should Americans have confidence that you are tkaing this seriously if there;’s not a single republican on the list.
SANDERS: Again, certainly we would look at those if we deemed it necessary, and we’ll keep you posted if that list gets updated.
John Gizzi of Newsmax, who asked the question a few weeks ago leading to the surprise announcement that clearances were under review, asked today about the historic precedent. Again, with no specific answer from Sanders.
GIZZI: I have to point out that the attorneys for former Director Comey and former Deputy Director McCabe say that their passes were automatically demagnetized the day that they were separated from their offices. Two others, Mr. Clapper and Gen. Hayden have said they do not use the pass at all, and also, it’s my understanding from a historical standpoint, this would be the first time the president himself removed the passes from anybody, that that has normally been done by agency heads or immediate superiors to people. Have you considered all these things in the process you say you’re going to…
SANDERS: Again, the other individuals, those are being reviewed. That determination will be made at a later date. Those that have already been revoked, it would be for the purpose of reviewing whether they should be reinstated or not.
CBS’ Chief White House Correspondent Major Garrett pushed the hardest, still to no avail.
GARRETT: You outlined two areas of either contradictory or erroneous testimony from Brennan. Is that the only standard by which the administration is discerning he should have his security clearance revoked.
SANDERS: Again, I laid out the reasons in the opening statement specific to director Brennan, the others are currently under review, I don’t have any specifics on those at this point.
GARRETT: So my question is, is that the standard? If you give erroneous testimony, if you say something you have to correct at a certain date in the future, if you work for this administration for example, does that mean you lose your security clearance?
SANDERS: My understanding this is being looked at on case-by-case basis which is why each individual is being reviewed and determination made at that point.
GARRETT: Does this administration have any evidence to believe or evidence to suggest Brennan has misused classified information or monetized access to it as was alleged earlier by this administration?
SANDERS: Again, I’ve laid out the reasons for the decision that was made on this specific instance. We’ll continue to review the other actions.
GARRETT: Can we assume by the absence of you not saying those things that you didn’t find any evidence then?
SANDERS: No, I wouldn’t make any assumptions. I’m telling you what the decision was based off on in this case.
Watch the clips above, courtesy of Fox News.
[Featured image via screengrab]
—
