Trump Attack On Ex-CIA Chief To Impair Flow Of Honest Intelligence - Ex-Pentagon Official

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Trump Attack on Ex-CIA Chief to Impair Flow of Honest Intelligence - Ex-Pentagon Official

US President Donald Trump is unlikely to suffer loss of support from his political base for pulling the security clearance of ex-CIA Director John Brennan, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy Chas Freeman told Sputnik.

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 20th August, 2018) US President Donald Trump is unlikely to suffer loss of support from his political base for pulling the security clearance of ex-CIA Director John Brennan, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy Chas Freeman told Sputnik.

"I doubt there will be much adverse political fallout on Trump from this," Freeman said. "His followers are mesmerized by the concept of a deep state that is trying to bring him down."

On Saturday, Trump intensified his public attacks on Brennan calling him a political hack who cannot be trusted. At least a dozen former US intelligence chiefs have said they are willing to surrender their security clearances in solidarity with Brennan.

However, Freeman observed that Trumps supporters love his aggressive public style and Trump knows such measures are popular with them.

"They will be delighted that he is striking back at those employing the magical credibility of security clearances to malign their hero," Freeman said.

But this action, like other arbitrary and capricious bullying and punishment of critics by Trump, will further impair the flow of honest information to him as president, Freeman warned.

"Why risk your livelihood as an analyst by saying something that will likely offend a solipsist inclined to respond vindictively to apparent criticism and slights?" Freeman asked.

The absence of respect for public service that Trump had demonstrated would further hollow out residual respect and loyalty to him by civil servants, Freeman predicted.

"There is a need for independent thinking in Washington that is going unmet. I am not suggesting that John Brennan provided such thinking, but his was his own voice," he said.

The US government, the think tanks that advised it and the mainstream media that was supposed to monitor and report the process all routinely got caught up in the same collective mob hysteria, Freeman recalled.

"There is no political spectacle more impressive than the Washington think-tank community wheeling, like a shoal of fish, to align itself with the latest delusions of its government sponsors and media predators. Consider the examples of Russiagate and related media feeding frenzies," he said.

The mainstream media was prepared to follow the talking points and conclusions offered to them without seriously questioning or analyzing them and thereby disseminated fake news or "alternative facts," Freeman explained.

"The intellectual lemmings of the press pick up the theme and march with it en masse into an abyss where alternative facts reside, become fruitful, and multiply. We've seen a lot of such fishy behavior recently," he said.

Chas Freeman is a lifetime director of the Atlantic Council and served as US Deputy Chief of Mission and Chargé daffaires at the US embassies in Beijing and Bangkok. Freeman also held several senior level positions at the US Department of Defense.