The White House said Monday that U.S. President Donald Trump is considering scrapping the security clearance of six former U.S. intelligence officials, a move seen by his critics as retaliation against political opponents.
"They've politicized and in some cases monetized their public service and security clearances," White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a press briefing, referring to the intelligence officials.
"Making baseless accusations of improper contact with Russia, or being influenced by Russia, against the president is extremely inappropriate and the fact that people with security clearances are making these baseless charges provides inappropriate legitimacy to accusations with zero evidence," she said.
According to Sanders, those among Trump's targets are former Central Intelligence Agency Directors John Brennan and Michael Hayden, former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director James Comey, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former National Security Adviser Susan Rice and former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe.
After his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Trump received widespread criticism from the intelligence community as he appeared to side with Putin rather than the U.S. intelligence community on whether Russia meddled with the U.S. elections in 2016.
Trump later clarified that he "stood with" U.S. intelligence agencies and that his remarks at a joint press conference with Putin were misquoted.
One of the vocal critics of Trump's position was Brennan, who commented publicly what Trump said was "nothing short of treasonous."
Sanders denied that revoking the officials' clearance was a way of retaliation against criticism, but to prevent them from "politicizing" and "monetizing" their privileges.
"The president doesn't like the fact that people are politicizing agencies and departments that are specifically meant to not be political," Sanders said, also battling off assertions that Trump himself was "politicizing" the issue.
Sanders said there's no specific timeline for carrying out these measures.
The incident is the latest scuffle between Trump and his critics in a larger battle of whether Trump's campaign had colluded with Russia during the 2016 elections. The Trump administration has acknowledged that Russia meddling took place but insisted there was no collusion.
