President Donald Trump late Wednesday echoed comments made on Fox News' "Hannity" program concerning his decision to remove former CIA director John Brennan's security clearance, after both Sean Hannity and conservative talk show host Mark Levin said others such as former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper should also lose their clearances.
“When they had power, they didn’t stop the Russians, the Chinese, the North Koreans," Levin said, in a quote repeated by Trump on Twitter. "They funded the Iranians & are responsible for the greatest scandal in American history by interfering with our election & trying to undermine the Trump campaign and Trump presidency.”
“I’d strip the whole bunch of them," Hannity agreed, in another comment shared by Trump. "They’re all corrupt. They’ve all abused their power. They’ve all betrayed the American people with a political agenda. They tried to steal and influence an election in the United States.”
Levin pointed out that Brennan, 62, has supported Communist presidential candidate Gus Hall back in the 1970s, calling Hall a "Stalinist who was funded by the Soviets," Fox News reported.
Such support was "very attractive to [former President Barack] Obama," Levin claimed. "How did he ever get a security clearance?"
"We have never had a former Communist who we now know spread Russian lies to disinform and propagandize the American people [and affect] a presidential election," Hannity added.
Levin said Trump should keep pulling security clearance from former officials, including Clapper, Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, and fired FBI agent Peter Strzok.