The President shall select a single department, agency, or element of the executive branch to be responsible for directing day-to-day investigations and adjudications for personnel security clearances, including for highly sensitive programs, throughout the United States Government. 50 USC 3341 (b) (1).
The Director of National Intelligence is the sole authority to determine “the need to know” as it pertains to classified material and shall establish a list of those individuals entitled to access to a particular program. 50 USC 3232 (b).
A “reinvestigation” is required to update a previous investigation at prescribed intervals: every 5 years in the case of a top secret clearance or access to a highly sensitive program; every 10 years in the case of a secret clearance; or every 15 years in the case of a Confidential Clearance. 50 USC 3341 (7) (A) (B) (C).
The logic for wanting to retain a security clearance after leaving a government position is intuitive; it allows a person to immediately be able to be validated by the Director of National Intelligence office to access classified information, thereby allowing the hiring agency to forego the expense and time interval to complete a “reinvestigation.” The bottom line is a valid security clearance makes the former government employee more desirable as they pass-thru the “revolving door” into the lobbying or government contract arena.
The number of people who came out of the woodwork to protest the rescinding of John Brennan’s clearance are concerned about the possibility of a general rescinding of security clearances of those no longer employed by the federal government. Like most things, it is about money.
As pertains to John Brennan, the following is a partial list of his known lies.
1. In 2009, Brennan falsely claimed that intelligence agencies had not missed evidence suggesting that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a.k.a. the “underwear bomber,” might blow up a U.S. airliner; they had.
2. In 2011, his official statements about the Osama bin Laden raid were at variance with the facts; in other words, he lied.
3. In 2011, Brennan, then the country’s chief counterterrorism adviser, had told Congress in sworn testimony that scores of drone strikes abroad had not killed a single noncombatant — at a time when both the president and the CIA were both receiving numerous reports of civilian collateral deaths.
4. In 2014, John Brennan, then the CIA director, lied emphatically that the CIA had not illegally accessed the computers of U.S. Senate staffers who were then exploring a CIA role in torturing detainees. He later apologized to the Senators for deceiving them.
5. Brennan, in May 2017, as an ex-CIA director, again lied when he didn’t tell the truth to Congress when he testified in answer to Representative Trey Gowdy’s questions that he neither knew who had commissioned the Steele dossier nor had the CIA relied on its contents for any action.
John Brennan is the poster boy for a group of elite but unelected federal officials who feel that they are untouchable and unaccountable. And, based on history, they are certainly immune to examination or prosecution by our selective service judicial system.
Of all the characters hovering around in the Washington, D.C., cess pool, Brennan floats to the top. He is certainly not the only Washington, D.C., hack whose security clearance should be withdrawn, but he would certainly be my first choice.
The sheer volume of the leaking of sensitive government information, the numerous FBI and DOJ officials who have been reassigned, resigned, fired, or retired should force any thinking individual to conclude that there is a systemic rottenness at the top echelons in elements of our government. Many of these self-serving individuals should no doubt be in federal prison; taking their security clearances is merely a start in the right direction.
Have good week. Bill Shuey is a freelance writer in Murphy, North Carolina.
