Is John Brennan Registered Democrat
Equally John Brennan takes his seat on the patio of the celebrated Willard Hotel, a few blocks from the White House, there is a ripple of recognition among those sitting nearby.
The sometime CIA manager is a human being more used to being in the background. Equally the head of America's foreign intelligence agency he was privy to the nation's virtually sensitive secrets.
Today, he has get a very public and outspoken critic of President Donald Trump, his fame cemented by his regular advent on cable news channels such as MSNBC.
Every bit we talk, a member of the public approaches Brennan to milkshake his hand. He responds politely, his shy smile suggesting that he is still not entirely comfortable with his new public persona.
Brennan will visit Dublin side by side calendar week for the Dalkey Book Festival. It is 1 of his many visits to the country, since his commencement trip more than than 40 years ago.
'I worked with half dozen presidents – three Democrats and three Republicans. I'm not a Democrat or a Republican. I'm a non-partisan'
Brennan is intensely proud of his Irish gaelic American heritage. His story is in many ways representative of the thousands who made the journey from Ireland to America to seek a better life.
His male parent, the seventh of 10 children from Co Roscommon, trained as a blacksmith before leaving Ireland for the Us in 1948 when he was 28 years old. Many of his generation took a similar path.
Within a couple of years in the United states he met Brennan's mother, whose grandparents had emigrated from Ireland, at an Irish dance.
They settled in New Jersey, and Brennan recalls beingness brought up in a typical Irish-American household.
Irish history was "securely embedded in us", he says. "For a while I knew as much about Irish history as I did about American history. I retrieve nosotros had a glorified impression of the old state, and nosotros'd often asked my father, 'why did you lot come here?'
"He used to say – information technology took me 28 years to come here, why would I go dorsum?" he smiles. "At that place was very piddling opportunity at the fourth dimension, peculiarly in Connaught."
Even so his father maintained a deep interest in his dwelling state. Brennan beginning accompanied his father back to Ireland in 1972. The concluding time was in 2014 when, together with his brother, he brought his 93-twelvemonth-onetime begetter back to Ireland for The Gathering. "We were in the local paper," says Brennan with a smile.
The son of an Irish immigrant who rose to the tiptop of the CIA, John Brennan'southward career trajectory in many ways encapsulates the American Dream.
Later on attention High School in New Jersey, he enrolled in Fordham Higher in New York, commuting an 60 minutes and a half each way every mean solar day to Manhattan.
A trip to Republic of indonesia during his sophomore twelvemonth – his cousin Tom was working there as a diplomat – sparked a wanderlust in him.
He outset considered attention the American University of Beirut but it closed in 1975 and instead he went to the American Academy in Cairo. There he learned Arabic and developed a lifelong involvement in the Heart East. After completing a masters in governance at the University of Texas in Austin on his return, he saw an advertisement for the CIA and applied.
Brennan joined the agency in 1980, moving rapidly up the career ladder. After a bout in Saudi Arabia, he held senior positions within the CIA. Brennan served nether six American presidents including – most controversially – George W Bush-league. Under this administration he was involved in the response to the 9/eleven attacks, including interrogation programmes.
His knowledge of and involvement in those programmes would later dog him when he was first considered as CIA manager by President Barack Obama.
Obama man?
While president Trump has accused him of being an Obama man, Brennan is quick to stress that he is non-partisan. "I worked with half dozen presidents – iii Democrats and three Republicans. I'm not a Democrat or a Republican. I'm a non-partisan."
Indeed, he points out that when he was in the Obama administration most of his troubles were with Autonomous senators, who raised concerns near the detention interrogation programmes.
Nonetheless, Brennan has a huge respect for Obama. Having acted as a long-distance adviser to Obama during the campaign – he did non meet the president in person until he was elected – he was invited to Chicago. "We had a lot of shared experiences. He spent years in Indonesia, of grade, and there was a very strong alignment of our views too as our principles, and I would say, moral compass."
While Obama asked him to exist CIA director, Brennan eventually withdrew from consideration over the controversy most his knowledge of the enhanced interrogation programmes. Instead he joined the White House equally assistant for homeland security and counterintelligence.
"Ironically I got to know him much amend and accept more influence than if I'd been in Langley," he says, referring to CIA headquarters in Virginia.
When David Petraeus resigned equally head of the CIA in 2012, Brennan replaced him, a move that put him at the very height of America's conclusion-making powers.
Brennan's central role in the Obama administration is captured in the famous photo taken inside the White House situation room on the dark Osama bin Laden was captured and killed – there he stands backside President Obama, Secretary of Land Hillary Clinton, and others, watching the operation unfold.
The problem with Trump
Only it is since leaving the US intelligence services and the election of Donald Trump that Brennan has stepped out of the shadows and into the public loonshit.
The 63-twelvemonth old has go one of the near vociferous critics of Trump. On Twitter and in multiple interviews he has blasted the president, most memorably describing the president's behaviour in Helsinki when Trump appeared to accept the side of Russian president Vladimir Putin over his own intelligence agents equally "treasonous". His status as i of the U.s.a.'s virtually vociferous critics of Trump was chillingly underlined when he was 1 of several prominent Americans, including Obama, who was the intended recipient of explosive packages in the mail final year.
As we sit and talk, with the White House grounds just metres away, talk turns to Trump. Brennan doesn't agree dorsum.
I find that many of Trump's policies are deeply flawed and are purely tactical to requite him a political bounce
"I take disagreed with by presidents about their policy choices, and I worked for them, and I accept no problem with differences in policy. Simply all the presidents I worked for, I really felt that what they were trying to do was in the best interests of the U.s. government. I e'er felt that they were trying to represent the American people, and I ever felt that they were respectful for the part, and were fulfilling those obligations that we all should wait and demand of a president of the United states of america," he says, his vocalism remaining steady and restrained.
"And so my beefiness with Donald Trump is non considering he has washed some very foolish things – like reneging on the Islamic republic of iran nuclear bargain, or how he has handled the Northward Korea situation – I find that many of his policies are securely flawed and are purely tactical to give him a political bounce.
"Only if that was the just problem I had with him, I would be silent. What really just rankles me to no end is his dishonesty, his lack of ethics and principles and character, the style he demeans and degrades and denigrates individuals or institutions of government, what he has done and said nearly the FBI and CIA and the former leadership, the fact that he wilfully misleads not merely the American people but the world."
He pauses to have a sip of water: "He is a pathological deceiver and that lack of ethical, principled behaviour is something that I never thought I would see in the president of the The states who is the most powerful person in the world, who should serve as a role model to all Americans.
"I experience that Donald Trump has not merely fallen brusk of that standard, he has totally trampled that standard. He has always been motivated by personal advocacy and gain, and then the things he does, the things he says, the tweets that he puts out I find are disgraceful, unconscionable, disrespectful, and are not in keeping with the great tradition this state has tried to institute."
Conspicuously, the feeling is mutual. Trump has derided Brennan as an Obama-appointee, who is a "disgrace to the intelligence community". The White Firm announced concluding year that it was removing Brennan's security credentials, though it has not yet followed through with the threat.
The Mueller report
In particular, Trump has highlighted the fact that Brennan was CIA director in the run-up to the 2016 elections – ane of the so-called "deep land" actors that his supporters believe were biased against Trump. Indeed Brennan was one of those who briefed Trump on the threat of Russian interference following the ballot.
With Trump accusing the US intelligence agencies of illegally spying on his campaign, it is likely that Brennan could be interviewed as part of the new probe opened by attorney general William Barr into the origins of the Russia investigation.
Brennan's by commentary on the Mueller report came under renewed scrutiny by Trump supporters and conservative commentators, in the weeks following the publication of William Barr'southward four-page summary of the Mueller written report.
That summary said the report had found no evidence of collusion between the Trump entrada and Russia – vindicating the claims of many Trump supporters that the The states intelligence services were biased against Trump.
Did people such as Brennan spring the gun when information technology came to the Mueller report?
"No. I still stand by my statement that at that place was extensive bunco, just what the Mueller investigative team adamant was that there was not a basis of show to establish a criminal conspiracy," he says.
"Even though the report made no reference to no collusion at all, attorney full general Barr said that there was no bunco and Trump continues to say no collusion. That's non the case – again it didn't meet the criminal conspiracy threshold."
As for the current challenges facing Trump, Brennan is hugely concerned nearly the administration's strategy on several strange policy issues.
'Iran zealots'
As we come across, he has just come up from a private briefing with House and Senate Democrats on Capitol Hill, where he briefed congressional figures on Islamic republic of iran. The threat of war between Washington and Tehran has appeared to increase in contempo weeks amid signs of increased US activity in the region.
"The United States has gone downward this cul de sac with Iran, past putting force per unit area on the regime, in the false belief that they volition change. It's a civilisation of resistance in Islamic republic of iran," he says, describing national security adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo every bit "Iran zealots".
"By reneging on the Iran nuclear deal, by designating the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] as a terrorist system, by tightening sanctions on Iran and forcing European parties to the agreement to renege on their obligations, the perception in Iran is that the Trump administration ultimately wants to overthrow the regime."
This has emboldened hardliners, he says, and even moderates who put their trust in the United states when they signed the 2015 accord.
Brennan is every bit dismissive almost Trump's North Korean policy, arguing that he played right into Kim Jong-un's hands.
President Obama, President Bush and President Clinton – the ones I worked most closely with – they wanted to understand all of the different aspects, all of the details
"Information technology was my impression that Kim Jong Un was already planning before the election that when a new president came into function he would ratchet up his activities to become the nuclear programme to a certain point that information technology could be a serious threat, and then pivot to try and demonstrate more statesman-like behaviour in the hope of being accepted as a responsible nuclear power similar India, or France.
Trump swallowed it hook, line and sinker, he says.
Trump "gave Kim the prominence and contour that he wanted without whatsoever commensurate reduction in his nuclear or missile capability" and left the Us with very niggling to show, he says. "North Korea has been able to farther develop its nuclear capabilities since Trump came into office."
Foreign policy failings
Ultimately for Brennan, he believes Trump's strange policy failings encapsulate his failings more generally as a president.
"These are all very complex and complicated bug that really require very delicate moves and an agreement of but how complicated the situations are," he says. "President Obama, President Bush and President Clinton – the ones I worked well-nigh closely with – they actually captivated a lot of data. They wanted to empathise all of the dissimilar aspects, all of the details.
"Clearly Donald Trump feels – and he has said – that he is the smartest man in the earth, that he knows more military generals know. This type of adhocery on foreign policy is a recipe for disaster."
Trump'due south modus operandi has "ever been to go in loftier and hard but then to settle for less but to effort to undercut your opponents past threatening them", he says. "That does not work in the same mode on the international stage. I think Trump is finding this out, despite his claims of his tremendous apprehending when information technology comes to negotiations, deal making."
Every bit for the next affiliate in the Trump presidency, Brennan believes that Democrats should go along their methodical investigations into the president'south behaviour in the wake of the Mueller report.
"I really do believe that Mr Trump is hiding something. Preventing people from testifying in forepart of Congress, not releasing his tax returns? I don't know what it is, only I think that the American people deserve to know whether their president is a criminal or vulnerable to foreign exploitation."
Irish heritage
Every bit nosotros terminate up our give-and-take, he jokes about if he has been candid enough about his views on the president. He says he puts it down to his Irish heritage.
"I tend to be a fleck outspoken, my Irish gaelic identity gets the better of me," he smiles. "I do speak rather bluntly and candidly, but that's what my father taught me, to be honest and true and to carry out your responsibilities with the greatest integrity. So you tin and let the chips autumn where they may."
With that, he steps out onto the busy streets of Washington DC, ready to answer to whatever the next affiliate of this extraordinary U.s.a. presidency will bring.
John Brennan will discuss Trump'south America and his former role every bit the head of the CIA at the Dalkey Book Festival. The festival runs from Thursday, June 13th, to Dominicus, June 16th. dalkeybookfestival.org
Is John Brennan Registered Democrat,
Source: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/john-brennan-my-trouble-with-trump-his-dishonesty-his-character-1.3915703
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