U.S. Sen. Bob Corker likened the Trump Administration to a “banana republic” for wanting to yank security clearances of ex-government hacks who are using their positions to attack the president.
The administration’s proposal is “the kind of thing that happens in Venezuela,” Tennessee’s junior senator told MSNBC, as reported by Politico. “I can’t even believe that somebody at the White House thought up something like this. I mean, when you’re going to start taking retribution against people who are your political enemies in this manner, that’s the kind of thing that happens in Venezuela.
“So you just don’t do that. I can’t believe they even allowed it to be aired, to be honest,” he said. “I mean, it’s a banana republic kind of thing.”
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s administration is considered a dictatorship.
Corker met with the dictator in May to secure the release of an American prisoner, surprising the Trump Administration and members of Congress. The meeting came one week after Maduro won re-election in a sham election.
“Not all members of Congress welcomed Corker’s visit to the South American country, especially in the wake of a presidential race the United States, several Latin American countries and some European nations have deemed illegitimate,” Newsweek reported U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) as saying.
Corker’s trash talking of the president came a day after the White House announced it was looking to remove security clearances held by former CIA Director John Brennan, former FBI Director James Comey, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former NSA Director Michael Hayden, former national security adviser Susan Rice and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said during Monday’s press briefing that Trump feels as though the former officials have “politicized” their positions by accusing Trump of inappropriate contact with Russia.
Meanwhile, Corker is helping fuel conspiracy theories about Russian interference with the 2016 election.
Senator @MikeCrapo and I worked closely together to write the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act and are eager to continue the important work being done by our committees to push back on Russia. Learn more about upcoming hearings here: https://t.co/dmKYEVbrsk.
— Senator Bob Corker (@SenBobCorker) July 24, 2018
He tweeted, “Senator @MikeCrapo and I worked closely together to write the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act and are eager to continue the important work being done by our committees to push back on Russia. Learn more about upcoming hearings here: https://bit.ly/2v2Xu1k .”
