NYT - "Was It Illegal for Trump to Revoke Brennan's Security Clearance?"

[NRaleighLiberal]

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/17/opinion/illegal-trump-revoke-brennan-security-clearance.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region

President Trump’s unprecedented decision to revoke the security clearance of John Brennan, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency — and his publicly stated intention to consider revoking clearances of a list of other administration critics — raises fundamental questions about national security, presidential authority and the First Amendment.

I believe the president has grossly abused his authority and violated Mr. Brennan’s First Amendment right to speak freely. The president’s actions are therefore unconstitutional and demand a response from Congress.

Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan foresaw the risks of unconstrained presidential authority over classified information and security clearances. In 1997 he led a commission that recommended, among other things, that Congress enact a statutory basis for the system, to ensure that information was classified only for genuine national security reasons and to provide due process for those who were not granted a clearance or had their clearance revoked. Many of the recommendations were adopted, but Congress chose not to enact a statute.

Senator Moynihan could not have foreseen that a president would abuse his powers by revoking a clearance, with no process at all, solely because the individual was exercising his First Amendment right to speak freely about policy issues. And he would be horrified if, in addition, a president threatened to revoke clearances of those who oversaw an investigation of a foreign power’s interference in our elections, as President Trump recently said he might do in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.


snip = more to read - sorry about the paywall.

[smirkymonkey]

1. K&R

[Claritie Pixie]

2. After reading this, I think Brennan will tale legal action.

He won’t go quietly into the night. His words - “I will not relent”.

[gratuitous]

3. Once again

If there's no iron-clad law on the books, this bandit administration has no compunction whatever about doing anything it pleases. There can be all kinds of recommended practices and customary procedures, but the administration delights in pissing everyone off. Even when there is a law to be broken, they'll insist they didn't really break the law because specious reasons.

The Republicans in Congress could take action about this anytime they want to. They don't.