Trump yanks ex-CIA chief's clearance, hitting vocal critic

President Donald Trump has abruptly revoked the security clearance of ex-CIA Director John Brennan, an unprecedented act of retribution against a vocally critical former top US official.

Trump also threatened to yank the clearances of eight former officials and a current one, mostly top intelligence and law enforcement officials from the Obama and previous administrations.

Trump denounced Brennan's criticism and spoke anxiously of "the risks posed by his erratic conduct and behaviour.

The president described his own action as fulfilling his "constitutional responsibility to protect the nation's classified information." However, Democratic congressmen said it smacked of an "enemies list" among fellow Americans and the behaviour of leaders in "dictatorships, not democracies."
Brennan tweeted: "My principles are worth far more than clearances. I will not relent."
Trump, in a statement read by his press secretary and distributed by the White House, accused Brennan of having "leveraged his status as a former high-ranking official with access to highly sensitive information to make a series of unfounded and outrageous allegations, wild outbursts on the internet and television about this administration."
Brennan has indeed been deeply critical of Trump's conduct, calling his performance at a press conference last month with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Finland "nothing short of treasonous."
"If they're saying that the only way I can speak is to be in an adulation mode of this president. I'm sorry, I don't think I can sign up to that," Clapper said, adding: "This is at least in my memory unprecedented."