In addition to claiming that Mr. Brennan is aiding a Kremlin plot to deepen America’s partisan divide, former CIA Clandestine Service Officer Daniel Hoffman says the former CIA director has actually jeopardized national security by publicly insinuating that Russian President Vladimir Putin may be blackmailing Mr. Trump.
Mr. Brennan made the insinuation in late-March when he asserted during an appearance on MSNBC’s "Morning Joe" that Mr. Trump is "afraid of the president of Russia" and that "one can speculate as to why."
"The Russians may have something on [Mr. Trump] personally, that they could always roll out and make his life more difficult," Mr. Brennan said. "That [Mr. Trump] has had this fawning attitude toward Mr. Putin...say[s] to me that he does have something to fear and something very serious to fear."
The comments quickly became fodder for headlines in other news outlets. But they also had something of an explosive impact inside the intelligence community, where many recoiled at the notion that the former CIA chief had made a public declaration on a matter U.S. spy agencies have never weighed in on conclusively.
Apparently aware of this, Mr. Brennan wasted little time trying to rectify the situation by reiterating that he was only speculating. Within just a few hours of the MSNBC interview, he told The New York Times that, "I do not know if the Russians have something on Donald Trump that they could use as blackmail."