Appearing Tuesday on CNN, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) slammed the intelligence community over a recent report claiming it defied an order from President Donald Trump to revoke the security clearance of former CIA Director John Brennan.
A partial transcript is as follows:
HOST BRIANNA KEILAR: I want to ask you, because you’ve been really a critic of John Brennan, who has been a critic of President Trump. You’ve not been a big fan of him. You’ve said that. He’s the former CIA director under President Obama. What do you think about this recent New York Times story that Brennan still has his security clearance? This was such a big, I guess, promise of the president’s, demand of the president. He said he was going to pull it, and he still has it.
SEN. RAND PAUL: Well, this is what worries me. People talk about the Deep State. Now the Deep State is actually protecting their own and not listening to the president’s orders. I was sitting in the White House when President Trump said, “I want his security clearance taken,” and I saw the order given. I saw the chief of staff was there, not the current chief of staff, the previous chief of staff.
And if they’re working against the odds of the president, that really does disrupt our country, does disrupt a representative democracy where the president makes a decision, and if someone is countermanding that, I think we need to get to the bottom of that. And I hope President Trump will say, “who is countermanding my orders. I said get rid of his clearance.” And I do think Brennan has been a partisan. And I think Brennan also abused his office in developing the Trump investigation. I think it was done under false pretenses and done for political reasons.