Former New York Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik says ex-intelligence chiefs who constantly attack President Trump and accuse him of treason are attempting to "undermine" his administration.
Kerik, who served as the provision Interior Minister of Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom, supports Sen. Rand Paul's, R-Ky., controversial proposal to revoke the top-secret clearances of several high-ranking former intelligence officials.
Sen. Paul met Monday with President Trump and urged him to yank the clearances. Paul later told Fox News that Trump might remove the security clearances of former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan, former FBI Director James Comey, and former Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice, among others.
"I think there's a great danger to having talking heads on TV who are ex-CIA agents and still have classified clearance," Paul said. "There's a real danger that they might inadvertently reveal classified information."
Several of the officials whose clearances are under review are among Trump's harshest critics. Brennan, for example, tweeted July 16 that Trump's news conference with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki was "nothing short of treasonous."
In an exclusive Newsmax interview Tuesday, Kerik said Brennan's "rhetoric is dangerous." Like Paul, Kerik maintains Brennan, Clapper, and others have engaged in vitriolic attacks that effectively disqualify them from access to top-secret U.S. intelligence.
"These are not guys who should have access to classified information in any way . . . Anybody who was engaged in this kind of conduct at a lower level would have their clearance pulled – there's no way it would happen."
Kerik tells Newsmax he is also concerned Obama holdovers in the federal bureaucracy "would not feel uncomfortable talking with them, briefing them, and giving them internal information that they then go out and use against the president because they despise them."
Outgoing intelligence chiefs traditionally have been given the opportunity to retain their top-secret clearances in case they are called upon to consult with incoming officials on sensitive operations that must be transferred from one administration to the next.
Kerik notes, however, it is difficult to think of a precedent for the current tenor of attacks on Trump from Obama-era intelligence officials.
Says Kerik: "This constant attack and constant rhetoric, I strongly believe, is intended to undermine the president and to create division within the government . . . and do stuff to create havoc for the administration."
Paul's call to cancel the top-secret clearances has drawn attention to the high-profile roles some former intelligence chiefs are playing in the media.
Former DNI Clapper told CNN on Monday the review of security clearances is "very petty," adding, "This is retribution for speaking out against the president."
But Mary Beth Long, the first woman confirmed to serve as the Assistant Secretary of Defense – she served in that capacity from 2007 to 2009 under former President George W. Bush – tweeted earlier this week: "If they want to be journalists, fine; but you cannot be one with access to intel."
Kerik agrees.
"I strongly believe that they have communications with prior administration holdovers who have access to classified information, when they should not," he says.
"They shouldn't be getting anything," Kerik tells Newsmax, "especially given their anti-administration rhetoric."
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