Trump revokes security clearances for 50 ex-intel officials — including 4 former CIA directors

20 January

On his first night back in the White House, President Donald Trump issued an abundance of executive orders. Trump pardoned roughly 1500 of the January 6 defendants, offering commutations to members of the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys. And he signed an order on birthright citizenship — which he favors abolishing even though it is in the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment.

Trump, according to the Washington Post, also revoked security clearances for around 50 former intelligence officials — including former National Security Adviser John Bolton and four ex-CIA directors.

One of the former CIA directors was Leon Panetta, who also served as secretary of defense in the Obama Administration. Another was John O. Brennan.

Trump also revoked the security clearance for James Clapper, who served as director of national intelligence under Barack Obama but held positions in the George W. Bush Administration before that.

Journalist Ken Klippenstein listed all 50 of them in a January 20 post on X, formerly Twitter.

The Washington Post's Ben Pauker reported that the former intel and national security officials included "multiple" former national intelligence heads.

One of the things many of the former Obama and George W. Bush officials on the list have in common is being outspoken critics of Trump.

In an op-ed published by the New York Times on January 20, Panetta, for example, worried that Trump's "chaotic" approach could prove problematic "in an increasingly dangerous and threatening world." And Bolton has repeatedly said that Trump lacks the self-discipline to serve the U.S. well from a national security standpoint.

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