In July, CNSNews.com not only parroted the Trump White House line of attack against former CIA director John Brennan for speaking out against President Trump over his infamous press conference, it also joined in the right-wing call for Trump to pull Brennan’s security clearance.
So when Trump did indeed pull Brennan’s security clearance, CNS couldn’t have been happier.
Melanie Arter’s article on the revocation — as you would expect from the unofficial Trump White House stenographer — contains statements only from Trump and White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders reading from a statement by Trump. That was followed by an even more fawning post from Susan Jones transcribing an anti-Brannan rant by Mark Levin cheering his revocation because “he has a big mouth, he will never shut up, he’ll go on TV and be the kook that he is.”
Surprisingly, CNS also offered alternative points of view, albeit in an attempt to portray Brennan as a spiteful Trump-hater. An Aug. 16 article by Jones summarized a Brennan op-ed claiming that Trump’s claim there was no collusion with Russia was “hogwash,” then does something neither she nor Arter did in their other articles: offering an alternative point of view by dedicating several paragraphs to what Trump has said on the issue “as a reminder.” Arter touted a Republican congressman who called Brennan a “butthead.”
A separate article by Patrick Goodenough highlighted for director of national intelligence James Clapper saying that pulling Brennan’s security clearance and threatening the pull the clearances of other former intelligence officials like himself for being critical of Trump will help them “sell more books.” And Arter finally got around to serving up her version of balance in an article quoting a former National Security Council executive secretary criticizing the revocations.