A Democratic lawmaker tore into President Trump on Wednesday for his decision to revoke former CIA Director John Brennan’s security clearance.
In a tweet that came minutes after the White House announced the move, Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) accused Trump of “punishing” Brennan for his harsh criticism of the president and said Trump is acting like a “dictator.”
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“A flimsy excuse to set a terrible precedent,” Beyer tweeted. “Trump is clearly punishing John Brennan for criticizing him, cracking down on a dissent and retaliating against a private citizen’s free speech.”
“The President has adopted the weak, paranoid, authoritarian behavior of a dictator,” he added.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders made the announcement about revoking Brennan’s clearance during a press briefing on Wednesday, reading a statement from the president.
“As the head of the executive branch and the commander in chief, I have a unique constitutional responsibility to protect the nation’s classified information, including by controlling access to it,” Trump said in the statement.
The announcement comes weeks after Sanders first revealed that Trump was considering revoking the security clearance of Brennan and a number of other former top officials — mostly from the Obama administration — who have been critical of Trump.
Sanders said Wednesday that Trump is also reviewing access to classified information for former FBI Director James Comey, former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and others.
Brennan, a frequent critic of Trump, tweeted Tuesday that the president fails “to live up to minimum standards of decency, civility, & probity” and that he “will never understand what it means to be president.”