Rep. Peter King: John Brennan is either a liar or incompetent
Former CIA Director John Brennan suggests 'bad information' may be to blame for his claims that President Trump colluded with Russia; reaction from New York Congressman Peter King, Republican member of the House Homeland Security Committee.
Former CIA Director John Brennan – who’s come under fire in recent days for his alleged role in pushing the unverified anti-Trump dossier – met with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and other House Democrats on Capitol Hill on Thursday, Fox News has learned.
Brennan, whose security clearance has been revoked and who this week admitted he may have “received bad information” while opining about the Russia investigation in his role as an MSNBC analyst, discussed a wide range of national security issues with Democrats, an official familiar with the meeting told Fox News.
Brennan was invited “long before” the Mueller investigation was reportedly concluded last Friday, the official told Fox News, but it was not clear if the Mueller report or the four-page summary letter of it released by Attorney General Bill Barr on Sunday were discussed during the “Leader’s Council” meeting.
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The council is composed of a “diverse group of members of the caucus” and meet on a regular basis with a wide range of guests, the official said.
Brennan’s meeting with Democrats comes amid a reexamination of his role in the launching and furthering of the narrative that President Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia.
The day before his Capitol Hill meeting, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., tweeted he’d been told by a “high-level source” that Brennan “insisted that the unverified and fake Steele dossier be included in the Intelligence Report…”
Paul added: “Brennan should be asked to testify under oath in Congress ASAP.”
The next day, Brennan was just steps from the Senate -- but as part of the Hoyer meeting.
Brennan on Monday issued one of the few mea culpas offered by members of the media in the aftermath of Barr’s letter, in which he quoted Mueller as having found no evidence of any collusion or coordination between the Trump team and Russia. Prior to that finding, Brennan, the CIA Director from 2013-2017, had adamantly insinuated in tweets and on TV that Mueller would put Trump’s “political & financial future in jeopardy.”
Going even beyond that, Brennan said Trump’s July 2018 Helsinki press conference alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin “rises to & exceeds the threshold of ‘high crimes & misdemeanors.’ It was nothing short of treasonous.” Brennan later doubled-down on the “treasonous” line during a television appearance.
But he struck a different tone Monday in the wake of the Mueller news.
“I don’t know if I received bad information, but I think I suspected there was more than there actually was,” Brennan said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
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Trump has frequently hit back at Brennan’s broadsides.
“I think Brennan is a very bad guy and, if you look at it, a lot of things happened under his watch,” Trump once told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson. “I think he's a very bad person.”
To that end, in 2018, the Trump administration revoked Brennan’s security clearance, saying the former Obama official had been “leveraging” his clearance to make “wild outbursts” about the president.
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