CIA/LAWSUIT/NATIONAL SECURITY/ROBERT MUELLER/RUDY GIULIANI/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Trump and Rudolph W. Giuliani, his personal lawyer, both taunted John O. Brennan, the former C.I.A. director, on Monday [8-20-18], apparently hoping that they could goad Mr. Brennan into filing a lawsuit against the president for revoking his security clearance. Mr. Giuliani tweeted that if Mr. Brennan failed to follow through with a lawsuit, it would be like President Barack Obama’s last-minute decision not to launch an attack on Syria after saying that the government’s use of chemical weapons was a ‘red line’ it must not cross…Together, the two tweets amounted to an odd ‘bring it on’ challenge to Mr. Brennan, who had mused over the weekend about filing a lawsuit as a response to losing his security clearance. Mr. Trump said last week that he revoked Mr. Brennan’s clearance because of his role in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. It is not entirely apparent why Mr. Trump and his lawyers would want to wage another legal battle at the moment. The president is already at the center of the Russia investigation by Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel. Michael D. Cohen, his longtime personal lawyer, is under investigation in New York. And the first of two criminal trials of Paul Manafort, the president’s onetime campaign manager, is likely to wrap up this week.”
–Michael D. Shear and Eileen Sullivan, “Trump and Giuliani Taunt Brennan About Filing a Lawsuit,” The New York Times online, August 20, 2018