August 15, 2018

White House Can’t Even Get John Brennan’s Security Clearance Announcement Right

How are they so bad at this?

Ron Sachs/ZUMA

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

It’s been nearly three weeks since the White House first announced that President Donald Trump was considering revoking the security clearances for top former officials who have criticized him, including John Brennan, the former CIA director under Barack Obama, who has regularly condemned Trump’s fitness for office both on social media and in television appearances. 

Fast-forward to Wednesday, when Trump followed through on the extraordinary threat and stripped Brennan of his security clearance. Reading from a statement by the president, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders cited Brennan’s “erratic” behavior and “wild outbursts” for the decision, her face not once registering the irony of these accusations considering the source. 

But many questioned the timing of Trump’s decision, which comes amid claims made by former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman that appear to substantiate previous rumors of a secret tape of Trump saying the N-word. A follow-up email to reporters from the White House is fueling speculation that Trump is hoping to distract from those very rumors. Note the timestamp:

Has the White House been saving the Brennan decision for a crisis like the one Manigault Newman has prompted with her new book? Did the July 26 announcement get pushed back in order to deal with Michael Cohen’s claims that Trump knew about the June 2016 meeting inside Trump Tower?

Perhaps the most important question, however, is why is the Trump White House just so bad at this?

GREAT JOURNALISM, SLOW FUNDRAISING

Our team has been on fire lately—publishing sweeping, one-of-a-kind investigations, ambitious, groundbreaking projects, and even releasing “the holy shit documentary of the year.” And that’s on top of protecting free and fair elections and standing up to bullies and BS when others in the media don’t.

Yet, we just came up pretty short on our first big fundraising campaign since Mother Jones and the Center for Investigative Reporting joined forces.

So, two things:

1) If you value the journalism we do but haven’t pitched in over the last few months, please consider doing so now—we urgently need a lot of help to make up for lost ground.

2) If you’re not ready to donate but you’re interested enough in our work to be reading this, please consider signing up for our free Mother Jones Daily newsletter to get to know us and our reporting better. Maybe once you do, you’ll see it’s something worth supporting.

payment methods

GREAT JOURNALISM, SLOW FUNDRAISING

Our team has been on fire lately—publishing sweeping, one-of-a-kind investigations, ambitious, groundbreaking projects, and even releasing “the holy shit documentary of the year.” And that’s on top of protecting free and fair elections and standing up to bullies and BS when others in the media don’t.

Yet, we just came up pretty short on our first big fundraising campaign since Mother Jones and the Center for Investigative Reporting joined forces.

So, two things:

1) If you value the journalism we do but haven’t pitched in over the last few months, please consider doing so now—we urgently need a lot of help to make up for lost ground.

2) If you’re not ready to donate but you’re interested enough in our work to be reading this, please consider signing up for our free Mother Jones Daily newsletter to get to know us and our reporting better. Maybe once you do, you’ll see it’s something worth supporting.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate