The outgoing CIA director John Brennan has warned Donald Trump to watch what he says while blasting the US president-elect for comparing the intelligence community to Nazi Germany.
Intelligence agencies should never have allowed this fake news to “leak” into the public. One last shot at me.Are we living in Nazi Germany?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2017
“What I do find outrageous is equating intelligence community with Nazi Germany,” Brennan said on Sunday, days after Trump blamed intelligence agencies for the release of unconfirmed reports about his ties with Russia.
Trump took to twitter to accuse US spy agencies of leaking “phony allegations” against him to the media even when they knew there was no proof.
Brennan also said that once Trump is inaugurated things will be different for him and that he’ll have responsibilities beyond just “talking and tweeting.”
Press TV reports:
Infuriated by the report, Trump went on a Twitter rant, saying that the intelligence community should be held into account for allowing “this fake news to ‘leak.’”
“One last shot at me. Are we living in Nazi Germany?” his tweet read.
Brennan took offense at Trump’s analogy, advising the incoming president to avoid “spontaneity” and “understand” the impact of his words before uttering them.
“I do take great umbrage with that and there is no basis for Mr. Trump to point fingers at the intelligence community for leaking information that was already available publicly,” the spymaster said.
“Spontaneity is not something that protects national security interests,” he argued. “And so therefore when he speaks or when he reacts, just make sure he understands that the implications and impact on the United States could be profound.”
The remarks further exposed the simmering tensions between the president-elect and the intelligence community.
Last week, Trump rejected the findings of a confidential intelligence report by the CIA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National Security Agency (NSA), which accused Russia of hacking Democratic Party emails to influence the US election.