The real reason Donald Trump just revoked John Brennan’s security clearance

| 7:07 pm EDT August 15, 2018
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Donald Trump finally made good on one of his promises today – it just happened to be a corrupt, juvenile, and deranged one. Weeks after threatening to revoke the security clearance of retired CIA Director John Brennan, Trump has finally gone through with it. Trump can’t cite any legitimate reasons, and everyone involved knows he did it out of petty revenge, as Brennan has consistently criticized him. But there’s also something else at play here.

Trump’s White House released an official statement today announcing that John Brennan’s security clearance has been revoked. The date on the statement: July 26th. In other words, Trump and his people crafted this letter weeks ago, back when Trump first began talking about it, and he’s been sitting on it until he needed a distraction. That moment has finally arrived.

It could be that Trump is desperately trying to shift the narrative away from Omarosa’s tapes and the accusations that he used the N-word on the set of the Apprentice. It could be that Trump has learned that some unrelated bombshell is about to land today or tomorrow, and he’s trying to preemptively drown it out. But this is clearly timed as a distraction.

This is also a jarring, corrupt, abusive, and illegal move on Donald Trump’s part. He’s trying to use the office of President of the United States to punish his detractors, which is why he can no longer hold that office. The real upshot here, however, is this: beyond the brief distraction, Trump gains nothing from this. It won’t scare or silence anyone in the intel community. It won’t get in Robert Mueller’s way at all. Trump’s move against John Brennan today is as useless to him as it is horrifying.