House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) said in an interview that aired on Hill.TV’s “Rising” on Thursday that it is not a good use of President Trump’s time to revoke ex-intelligence officials’ security clearances.
“I can understand why the president’s upset, because their behavior is nothing short of being bizarre. However, I’m not sure it’s a good use of time to have this fight,” Nunes told Hill.TV’s Buck Sexton, who sat down with the lawmaker on Wednesday.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders revealed on Monday that the president was mulling revoking security clearances from former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former CIA Director Michael Hayden, former national security adviser Susan Rice, former FBI Director James Comey and former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe.
Sanders said the former officials have made “baseless” accusations toward the president about improper contact with Russia.
Nunes told Sexton the officials have been publicly dishonest, referring to a dossier alleging ties between Trump and Russia.
“As you’re aware, you had —many of these actors that he’s talking about were involved with unverified dossiers that they pushed forward out into the public, that leaked out into the public, spilled into the public, that was bought and paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign, and these were the top intelligence officials and they supposedly were all oblivious to it, and didn’t know about it, which is hard to believe,” he continued.
“So you can understand why the president’s upset. He thinks they’ve been dishonest with the American people. I think they look extremely dishonest,” he added.
— Julia Manchester
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