the white house just messaged the entire american intelligence community, if you stand up and say things that upset the president or with which he disagrees, he will punish you. and that is a horrible message to be sending to folks who are there to tell you objective truth. and this morning several other top intelligence officials are also at risk of losing their security clearances. for more let s bring in nbc news national political reporter heidi pressbowl, good to have you on set. it appears john brennan will be just the first official ever to get his security clearance revoked as white house brace secretary sarah sanders said yesterday when reading the president s statement. i ve also begun to review the more general question of the access to classified information by government officials. as part of this review, i m evaluating action with respect to the following individuals. james clapper, james comey, michael hayden, sally yates,
critical on television? not at all. the president has a constitutional responsibility to protect classified information and who has access to it. reporter: the backlash was fierce. these people were being singled out to have either clearances revoked or in the process of being revoked, to me smacks of nixonian-type practices, of trying to silence anyone who s willing to criticize this president. reporter: why now? the white house won t say but officials here are eager to turn the page on multiple controversies. mr. trump s former adviser omarosa accusing him of using the n word. his former campaign chair on trial. kristen welker with that report. in a new interview president trump said his actions against john brennan had to do with the russia probe. let s bring in nbc news national reporter heidi prizbella. interesting statement by sarah sanders. yesterday the white house press secretary read a lengthy statement on why the president
susan rice, andrew mccabe, peter strzok, lisa page, bruce orr. all those names are potential officials except bruce orr who currently serves in the justice department and whose wife worked for the firm that commissioned the steele dossier. so we have this situation here, heidi, where first time ever, these are waters we are just floating into, uncharted before, but it may not be the last. the timing of it, the date on the statement. and again what we re hearing time and time again, the distraction factor. that s right. as andrea mitchell reported this would be the first time ever, absent some kind of criminal accusation or conviction, that a former official would have their license revoked. then of course there s this very suspect timing. the date that was scrubbed from that press release that seemed to suggest a decision was made awhile ago, and yet it was strategically dropped the night after brennan criticized him, and also, very importantly, as
unfounded and outrageous allegations, wild outbursts on the internet and television, about this administration. reporter: brennan has called mr. trump everything from a traitor to a danger to the country. and he responded forcefully. revoking my security clearances is his way of trying to get back at me. but i think i have tried to voice the concerns of millions of americans, and this is not going to deter me at all. reporter: the white house also announcing it s reviewing the security clearances of other intelligence and law enforcement officials, many of them trump critics or involved in the russia investigation, including fired fbi director james comey, former cia director michael hayden, obama s national security adviser susan rice, and former director of national intelligence, james clapper, who called the move an infringement of first amendment rights. isn t it also an attempt to curtail their freedom of speech by penalizing them for being
scratched that later. look what s happening, this is the week of the omarosa trickle of revelation lations of recordings this is manafort. so you have that in this massive bag of distraction tricks. it makes you wonder if omarosa really does have something on her tapes. there are many more tapes that she made. is he the question is, he s clearly responding to omarosa. is it because he thinks she actually has something on those tapes? or is he so angry by being owned by this woman on the airwaves that he lashed out and took this action to change the narrative? we know he does this because he s told us that this is his strategy. this is what he does and how he changed the narrative. the reactions there in the beltway, you saw it there with speaker ryan, either shrug or a chill. there will be a lot of pressure on him to respond to those comments that this was just trolling. that sounds very playful, but this is not playful. this is serious. heidi, thank you so much.