Sen. Rand Paul thinks former CIA Director John Brennan is “completely unhinged” for accusing President Trump of “treason” during a press conference with Vladimir Putin.
The Republican lawmaker from Kentucky defended Trump amid a firestorm of criticism following his summit with the Russian president in Helsinki as he appeared to agree with Putin that the Kremlin did not interfere in the 2016 election.
Brennan slammed the president for his comments which he called “treasonous.” The president on Tuesday walked back his remarks saying he misspoke.
“I think John Brennan is completely unhinged and you see him now calling the president treasonous,” Paul told Fox News’ Martha MacCallum Tuesday.
“And what should worry every American is John Brennan was in charge of the CIA, the most powerful intelligence gathering group on the planet,” he continued. “They can absorb every bit of information you can imagine: your phone calls, your metadata, your bank records, your Visa records. They can destroy any person’s life.”
Paul voiced his concern that Brennan as the head of that agency “turns out to be a very much a partisan, a Trump hater.”
“But I really am worried that he was head of the CIA for so long harboring all of that bias,” Paul added.
On Trump’s comments during the press conference and his correction later, the GOP lawmaker noted that there are two distinct parts of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation that get “conflated” by many.
The president sees Mueller’s probe into the election as an accusation that he colluded with Russia, Paul explained. The investigation is looking into collusion of Trump’s associates with Russia and if Russia leaked Hillary Clinton campaign emails after hacking into the server.
“I think those are two sort of completely different aspects, but they are in the same investigation. So I think his instinct is to push back and say ‘there was no collusion, I was never involved with Russia,’ – which I believe to be true,” Paul said.
“And I think there has been a partisan witch hunt to go after him to try to say somehow there was collusion with Russia,” he continued. “That is separate from whether or not Russia actually hacked into Hillary Clinton’s emails, which I think he accepts and I think was somewhat muddled in the initial press conference comments.”
In the early morning hours Wednesday, Trump tweeted about the summit, calling out the “many haters who wanted to see a boxing match” between himself and Putin.
So many people at the higher ends of intelligence loved my press conference performance in Helsinki. Putin and I discussed many important subjects at our earlier meeting. We got along well which truly bothered many haters who wanted to see a boxing match. Big results will come!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 18, 2018
He even called out those with “Trump Derangement Syndrome” who would rather go to war with Russian than see the president getting along with Putin.
Some people HATE the fact that I got along well with President Putin of Russia. They would rather go to war than see this. It’s called Trump Derangement Syndrome!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 18, 2018
The president called out Bennan as “a very bad guy” during a pre-taped interview with Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson, which aired Tuesday night.
“Well, I think Brennan is a very bad guy and if you look at it, a lot of things happened under his watch,” Trump said. “I think he is a bad person.”
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Frieda@bizpacreview.com
Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida where she has been writing for the BizPacReview team since 2015.
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