GAI Director of Research Seamus Bruner praised newly confirmed FBI Director Kash Patel during a recent media appearance.
“I’m going to go ahead and plug Kash’s book—you must read Government Gangsters,” Bruner said.
“Kash lists dozens of various officials—former, current, and others—who are entrenched in the deep state and need to be flushed out,” Bruner continued, adding, “We have a report from the Government Accountability Institute coming out where we expand on that list.”
Bruner continued: “We have over 100 names of people who have security clearances. I did a piece with Peter Schweizer in the New York Post about how security clearances are a way to get rich for a lot of these deep staters. Donald Trump has already yanked the security clearances of some of the bad apples, but
there are a lot more that need to be taken away.”
In the New York Post op-ed from 2018, Schweizer and Bruner reacted to then-President Trump revoking former CIA Director John Brennan’s security clearance.
From The New York Post:
The president’s point is valid: Maintaining access to top-secret or classified information is how former intelligence officials like Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey and others command millions of dollars from the private sector. A security clearance reportedly yields a salary of up to 15 percent higher compared to the salaries of individuals without clearances for the same position.
For the more than 4 million private-sector individuals holding clearances, the secretive private intelligence industry is a massive ecosystem, ripe for concealed cronyism.
Unlike other Office of Governmental Ethics restrictions, security clearances themselves are not subject to a “cooling-off period” after someone leaves government service. This period refers to the time that a government employee must wait before lobbying or even meeting with the agency or officials they once worked for, among other prohibited activities.
Some believe this type of delay should also apply not just to lobbying activities, but also to those who go to work for media organizations, providing them with “expert analysis” based on knowledge gleaned from having an active security clearance.
Watch the clip above and check out Schweizer and Bruner’s Post piece here:
Ex-officials actually use security clearances to get rich https://t.co/RCrZxlIpXL pic.twitter.com/AerpvuyJnu
— NY Post Opinion (@NYPostOpinion) August 22, 2018
