LETTER TO THE HONORABLE GINA C. HASPEL FROM JOHN O. BRENNAN

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 06930530
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: October 23, 2023
• Document Release Date: August 28, 2023
• Case Number: F-2020-01955
• Publication Date: January 15, 2020

Approved for Release: 2023/01/17 C06930530
John 0. Brennan
January 15, 2020
The Honorable Gina C. Haspel
Director
Central Intelligence Agency
Langley, Virginia
ctor Haspel:
ecognize the demands on your time and, accordingly, have held off for many months dir
raising this matter with you. But I believe the time has come to tell you how deeply disap
I am at the troubling and entirely unprecedented manner in which the Agency has respond
my request for access to materials related to my previous service as Director of the Central
Intelligence Agency.
I submitted my request on December 18, 2018 (copy attached for your convenience). Des
the Agency's long and uninterrupted practice of promptly granting requests by former sem
leaders for access to their papers, the Agency has refused to provide me access on the sarn
(let alone on the same timeline) as it afforded every other recent Director and Acting Direc
who made a similar request. It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the Agency's re
grant my request reflects the current administration's desire to punish and retaliate against
speaking out as a private citizen�an abuse of power designed to chill the exercise of my F
Amendment rights.
As you know, long-standing executive branch policy, reflected in Executive Order 13526,
Agency regulations provide a mechanism for former Directors to obtain access to material
they produced or reviewed while serving as Director. These regulations contemplate a fo
Director obtaining access to a broad category of both classified and unclassified materials,
"items that the person originated, reviewed, signed, or received while serving as" Director.
CFR 1909.8(b)(6).
Despite the scope of material contemplated by the regulation, my request sought access to 9n1y a
narrow selection of materials�namely, my "calendars, the tables of contents of my day bo' ks,
and my handwritten notes for the period in which I served" as Director. Along with my offer to
conduct my "review at a facility of [the Agency's] choosing in the northern Virginia area," I
intentionally geared my request to reduce burden on the Agency. Shortly after I sent my r uest,
my counsel, David S. Cohen, informed the General Counsel on my behalf that I would rea
execute a nondisclosure agreement, thereby satisfying the regulatory requirement that I, lik any
former Director, execute an NDA to ensure that classified information would be protected.
Over the course of the past year, I have tried to be accommodating and also to relieve burd
the Agency and expedite the process. For instance, in February 2019, to allay the General
n on
Approved for Release: 2023/01/17 C06930530
Approved for Release: 2023/01/17 C06930530
The Honorable Gina C. Haspel
January 15, 2020
Page 2
Counsel's concerns that we were somehow trying to set a "litigation trap" for use in a pote
lawsuit involving my security clearance, Mr. Cohen informed the General Counsel that if I
provided access to classified material, I would waive any right I might have to argue in so
subsequent litigation that granting me access to the requested material would bear on the
question whether it would be lawful for the administration to withdraw my security clearan
And in March 2019, Mr. Cohen informed the General Counsel that without waiving my re
to access all the material originally requested, I would be willing to review initially only
unclassified (i.e., redacted) calendars, tables of contents of my Daybooks, and the running
level diary of my daily activity that my assistant maintained.
Despite these accommodations, for close to a year, the Agency refused to grant me access
material. Notably, the General Counsel acknowledged to Mr. Cohen that the failure to g
request is not due to any legal concerns under the Executive Order or Agency regulation.
contrary, she has acknowledged repeatedly that the relevant regulations permit me to obtai
access to the materials I sought, regardless of whether I currently hold a security clearance.
tial
as
e.
est
igh-
any
t my
o the
Rather than raising a legal objection, the General Counsel first asserted to Mr. Cohen on se eral
occasions beginning last Spring that resolution of my request was "held up" because she re erred
t for review by certain unnamed White House and Justice Department officials. In a
conversation on May 16, 2019, the General Counsel told Mr. Cohen that, because these amed
officials were focused on other matters, there was no timeline for resolution of my request. After
several subsequent, and fruitless, conversations over the ensuing months, the General Co sel
finally told Mr. Cohen on September 20, 2019 that my request was "unlikely to go anywhe e."
Needless to say, Executive Order 13526 and the applicable Agency regulations do not
contemplate any role for officials outside the Agency in addressing a former Director's req est
for access, and particularly not political appointees in the White House and the Justice
Department. The Executive Order, for instance, directs "the agency head or senior agency
official of the originating agency" to decide whether to grant access. Likewise, the Agenc 's
regulations vest responsibility to approve a former Director's request for access in the desi nated
"Senior Agency Official" (currently, the Chief Operating Officer), with the Director posse sing
the ultimate authority to grant access.
When Mr. Cohen spoke with the General Counsel again on November 5, 2019, he was tol or
the first time that in August 2018�several months before I submitted my request for acces
President issued a written "directive" of some sort that purportedly forbids anyone in the
Intelligence Community from sharing classified information with me. I have neither seen s
purported directive nor have I been informed of its existence or scope by anyone, in the A ncy
or elsewhere in the administration. According to the General Counsel, this utterly unprece iented
and blatantly retaliatory action by the President somehow made it impossible from the out to
grant my request. But it was not until almost a year after I submitted my request for acces to
materials, and after multiple conversations and efforts at accommodation, that Mr. Cohen as
informed of this purported directive.
Faced, finally, with the outright rejection of my request for access to my classified materia
authorized Mr. Cohen to accept the Agency's offer to provide me with unclassified (redact
Approved for Release: 2023/01/17 C06930530
Approved for Release: 2023/01/17 C06930530
The Honorable Gina C. Haspel
January 15, 2020
Page 3
versions of my Daybook table-of-contents and the diary of my daily activity, all of which i
marked For Official Use Only (FOUO). While I appreciate the effort of the Chief Operati g
Officer and Agency officers to redact and provide this material, these unclassified FOUO
documents obscure both where I traveled (domestically and internationally) and with who I
spoke on the telephone, significantly limiting their usefulness. And of course, they are a pi or
substitute for what the Agency's regulations authorize�namely, "items that [I]... originat d,
reviewed, signed, or received while serving as" Director, 32 CFR � 1909.8(b)(6)--or even e
classified versions of my "calendars, the tables of contents of my day books, and my hand tten
notes for the period in which I served."
This entire episode is unprecedented. Former Directors and Acting Directors Robert Gate , Leon
Panetta, Michael Hayden, George Tenet, and Michael Morell were all granted broad acces to
highly classified materials promptly upon request�within a matter of weeks, at most. Ind ed, I
am not aware of any prior instance when a former Director or Acting Director has not bee
provided access to his classified material almost immediately upon request. This unbroke
practice has benefitted former Directors, the historical record, and the Agency. As former
Director George Tenet wrote in his book, At the Center of the Storm: The CIA During Am rica's
Time of Crisis:
This book relies on more than just people's memories. Under Executive Order
13292, former presidential appointees are permitted to have access to classified
documents from their period of service in order to conduct historical research. I
relied on this privilege heavily and requested access to literally tens of thousands
of pages of documents. These primary resources were of immense assistance to
me in trying to make [this book] as accurate as possible.
Clearly, the only reason that I have been treated in a dissimilar fashion is because I have ben
critical of the President and his foreign policy. I can only interpret this disparate treatment as an
effort to harm me financially as I, unlike my predecessors, have been unable to access the
records of my time as Director while I write my memoirs. It also threatens to deprive the Oblic,
and the historical record, of a complete account of my time leading the Agency�a trernenclously
eventful time in our Nation's history.
Moreover, and perhaps most significantly, refusing to grant me access to my records becaupe of
the exercise of my First Amendment rights runs directly counter to one of the Agency's cote
principles�namely, to steer clear of politics and the political predilections of elected offici ls
and their political appointees. Politicization, in matters large or small, corrodes the Agenc 's
standing in the public eye as well as its ability to speak truth to power. This was the message
delivered by former Director Robert Gates in his famous address to the CIA workforce,
"Guarding Against Politicization;" it is what every Director and Deputy Director emphasiOs
when she or he swears in new officers in front of the Memorial Wall; and it is what every gIA
officer is reminded of when she or he comes to work every day. Distorting a long-standing
neutrally applied Agency practice to mollify the President and the White House is politicization,
plain and simple.
Approved for Release: 2023/01/17 C06930530
Approved for Release: 2023/01/17 C06930530
The Honorable Gina C. Haspel
January 15, 2020
Page 4
Like you, I care deeply about the Agency I served for over 29 years, including the great ho or of
being its Director. It is for this reason that I have been patient and flexible over the past m y
months, hoping that we would be able to arrive at an amicable, quiet resolution to this issu
This approach, however, has been met with delay, diversion and, ultimately, denial of my request
for access to my classified material, all of which has occurred on your watch.
I recognize that reasonable people may have different views about my criticisms of the President
and his policies. No one, however, can reasonably question that I have the absolute right as a
private citizen to voice those criticisms, or that our government has absolutely no right to 4se its
official power to retaliate against me for doing so. In responding to me and my criticism, the
administration apparently has lost sight of this basic constitutional principle, and I am ve
troubled that the Agency�whose very purpose is to defend against threats to our constitutional
government and freedoms�has allowed itself to be complicit in this threat to free speech.
Respectfully,
Attachment
cc: Andrew Malcridis
Courtney Elwood
David S. Cohen
Approved for Release: 2023/01/17 C06930530