Former CIA director John Brennan is writing a memoir about his career leading the intelligence agency, including his tenure under President Trump.
In the book, due out in October, Brennan claims that President Trump ordered the intelligence agency to deny him access to his official records, the Washington Post reports.
Brennan says that he requested access to classified material while writing his book, Undaunted: My Fight Against America’s Enemies, at Home and Abroad. Such requests aren’t unusual for people who used to lead the agency and are usually granted.
But Brennan discovered, he writes, that Trump “had issued a directive…that purportedly forbids anyone in the intelligence community from sharing classified information with me.”
In the book Brennan says that Trump expressed skepticism over Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election during a briefing in January 2017.
“Trump’s alertness never faded during the briefing, but his demeanor as well as his questions strongly revealed that he was uninterested in finding out what the Russians had done or in holding them to account,” the Post quotes Brennan as writing.
The book’s publisher, Celadon Books, describes Brennan’s book as “brutally honest” on its website.
“With its behind-the-scenes look at how major U.S. national security policies and actions unfolded during his long and distinguished career—especially during his eight years in the Obama administration—John Brennan’s memoir is a work of history with strong implications for the future of America and our country’s relationships with other world powers,” Celadon says.
Undaunted is slated for publication on Oct. 6.
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
