Trump Slams Ex-CIA Chief John Brennan, Who Accused Him of Treason: 'Sick Person'

Published: 3/28/2019, 11:01:30 AM EDT

Trump Slams Ex-CIA Chief John Brennan, Who Accused Him of Treason: 'Sick Person' — President Donald Trump holds a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office at the White House on March 25, 2019. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Brennan at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on March 13, 2015. ((Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images; Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump slammed former CIA Chief John Brennan, who accused him multiple times of committing treason.

"I think Brennan's a sick person, I really do. I believe there's something wrong with him," Trump told Fox News' Sean Hannity on the night of March 27. "For him to come out of the CIA and act that way was so disrespectful to the country and to the CIA and to the position he held."

Brennan testified before Congress in May 2017 that he was presented with information showing contacts between Trump campaign officials and Russians.

“I encountered and am aware of information and intelligence that revealed contacts and interactions between Russian officials and U.S. persons involved in the Trump campaign,” he said. “It raised questions in my mind … whether or not the Russians were ever able to gain cooperation of those individuals."

In 2018, Brennan called Trump's press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin "nothing short of treason."

Brennan, who was embroiled in a number of scandals while serving in the administration of former President Barack Obama, frequently appeared on MSNBC since being removed from his position after Trump came into office. A few weeks before the submission of special counsel Robert Mueller's report, which did not establish a link between the Trump campaign and Russia, Brennan predicted that members of the president's family could be indicted.

He appeared back on the cable news channel after the report's submission saying, "I don’t know if I received bad information but I suspected there was more than there actually was."

Trump roasted the former intelligence official in his interview with Hannity: "He was not considered good at what he did, he was not a respected guy—a tough guy, but not a respected guy—but he lied to Congress."

"The other night before the report came out he predicted horrible things, the things he said were horrible," Trump said. "And then today ... I heard he said, 'I must have had bad sources, or bad information.' This is a man who really is either sick, or some other problem."

Trump also slammed ex-National Intelligence director James Clapper for lying in his testimony to Congress.

"Perhaps the statutes of limitations ran out on that one but it didn't run out on [James] Comey, it didn't run out on Brennan, or [Peter] Strozk, or [Lisa] Page, or [Andrew] McCabe."

Trump noted that while McCabe was running the FBI before he was fired for lying to investigators, his wife, a political candidate, received "hundreds of thousands of dollars from, essentially, [from former Secretary of State Hillary] Clinton."

Trump also slammed Department of Justice employee Bruce Ohr, saying about Ohr's wife, Fusion GPS employee Nellie Ohr: "She wrote the report and goes and gives it to his husband, who was at the DOJ, and then he goes and brings it to the FBI, and she's getting paid for doing it? It's incredible. The things that happened are incredible and very, very bad for our country."

Trump's comments came after U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said he'd received new information about Brennan's role in spreading the unverified dossier compiled by ex-British spy Christopher Steele that was paid for by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

"A high-level source tells me it was Brennan who insisted that the unverified and fake Steele dossier be included in the Intelligence Report," Paul wrote in a post on Twitter.

"Brennan should be asked to testify under oath in Congress ASAP."