"Clearly, things are reaching a boiling point" the former director said. “What happens in the days, weeks and months ahead is going to determine just how much damage will be done to this country.”
Brennan said that he viewed the act of an anonymous "senior official" of the administration writing an opinion piece detailing a cabal of rogue officials working to undermine the president's agenda as "certainly courageous."
US law defines a "seditious conspiracy" as when "two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof."
While the anonymous official is presumed innocent until proven guilty, he wrote in the New York Times that "there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president."
Trump publicly wondered whether the author is guilty of treason on Twitter in the wake of the publishing of the article, then the following day at a rally in Montana said that the New York Times had committed treason. However, US law defines treason as when someone "owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere," which does not appear to apply to either the article publishers nor its author.
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) September 6, 2018
Brennan previously said that Trump's meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland, in July "rises to & exceeds the threshold of 'high crimes & misdemeanors.' It was nothing short of treasonous." Later, Brennan admitted to MSNBC's Rachel Maddow that he "didn't mean that he committed treason."
— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) August 18, 2018
But when Brennan sat down with NBC's "Today Show" on Thursday, he said that the media "on both the right and the left… has been rather hyperbolic."
When revoking the former director's security clearance, Trump argued that Brennan was using his status to make "unfounded and outrageous" claims about Trump's presidency.
