William McRaven, commander of the U.S. Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden, condemned President Donald Trump on Thursday for revoking the security clearance of former CIA chief John Brennan – and asked that his be canceled as well.

The decorated retired Navy admiral, in an open letter published in The Washington Post, defended Brennan as 'one of the finest public servants I have ever known' and accused Trump of using 'McCarthy-era tactics.'

'Few Americans have done more to protect this country than John,' McRaven wrote of Brennan. 'He is a man of unparalleled integrity, whose honesty and character have never been in question, except by those who don't know him.'

'Therefore, I would consider it an honor if you would revoke my security clearance as well, so I can add my name to the list of men and women who have spoken up against your presidency.'

Robert O'Neill the Navy SEAL credited with firing three fatal bullets into bin Laden's head, tweeted Thursday afternoon that he isn't siding with McRaven.

'I have nothing but respect and love for ADM McRaven. Yes I’ve seen this. We simply disagree,' he tweeted, pointing to the short Post essay.

Retired U.S. Navy admiral William McRaven, commander of the SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden, asked President Donald Trump to revoke his security clearance in a gesture of solidarity with former CIA chief John Brennan

Trump, pictured Thursday during a Cabinet meeting at the White House, yanked ex-spymaster Brennan's clearance a day earlier

Brennan, pictured during a 2017 congressional hearing, lashed out at Trump in a brutal New York Times essay

McRaven was the head of U.S. Joint Special Operations Command from 2011 to 2014 and supervised the Pakistan SEAL raid in 2011.

'Like most Americans, I had hoped that when you became president, you would rise to the occasion and become the leader this great nation needs,' he wrote.

'A good leader tries to embody the best qualities of his or her organization. A good leader sets the example for others to follow. A good leader always puts the welfare of others before himself or herself.'

'Your leadership, however, has shown little of these qualities,' McRaven continued. 'Through your actions, you have embarrassed us in the eyes of our children, humiliated us on the world stage and, worst of all, divided us as a nation.'

'If you think for a moment that your McCarthy-era tactics will suppress the voices of criticism, you are sadly mistaken. The criticism will continue until you become the leader we prayed you would be.'

Trump revoked Brennan's security clearance on Wednesday and warned several other prominent critics that they too risk being blacklisted.

Following the president's summit last month with Russia's Vladimir Putin, Brennan described Trump's behavior as 'nothing short of treasonous.'

Trump accused the former spy chief of tossing around 'unfounded and outrageous allegations – wild outbursts on the internet and television – about this administration' and engaging in 'increasingly frenzied commentary.'

Robert O'Neill, the former U.S. Navy SEAL who has identified himself as the person who killed Osama bin Laden during a 2011 Pakistan raid, said he doesn't agree with McRaven's position in standing up to the president

'We simply disagree,'O'Neill wrote Thursday on Twitter of his former commanding officer Admiral McRaven

Trump says he would have added Republicans to his list of security-clearance targets 'if I thought they were incompetent or crazy'

A furious Brennan alleged Thursday in a separate New York Times essay that Trump yanked his security clearance because he's 'desperate' to keep a lid on his presidential campaign's collusion with agents of the Kremlin.

'Mr. Trump's claims of no collusion are, in a word, hogwash,' the former CIA director wrote.

Brennan, a fierce public Trump critic, had already fired back at the White House on Wednesday, comparing the president to 'despots and autocrats.'

In his Times op-ed, he contended that 'Mr. Trump clearly has become more desperate to protect himself and those close to him, which is why he made the politically motivated decision to revoke my security clearance in an attempt to scare into silence others who might dare to challenge him.'

Brennan recalled a July 2016 press conference in which then-candidate Trump called on Moscow to 'find,' and presumably release, an estimated 30,000 emails that his opponent Hillary Clinton and her lawyers had erased from a private server before releasing the rest of its contents to the State Department for public release.

'Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,' Trump said at the time. 'I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.'

Some observers saw Trump asking the Kremlin to publish anything its cyber-warriors had already harvested from what turned out to be an unsecured online server that had hosted classified information for years.

Others, including Brennan and the Clinton campaign, believed he was calling on Vladimir Putin's government to launch a new hacking spree on a server which, the FBI confirmed, had been offline for a year.

By then a mad chase was already underway to find out if additional copies of the data had been stored elsewhere. It's unclear what Trump may have known about that at the time.

Campaign aides later told DailyMail.com that Trump was joking.

Brennan's case for collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia is a July 2016 press conference where the future president invited the Kremlin to 'find' Hillary Clinton's emails on a server that had been offline for a year

'Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,' Trump said at the time. 'I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.'

On Thursday Brennan argued that by publicly invoking Russia's digital spymasters, Trump 'was not only encouraging a foreign nation to collect intelligence against a United States citizen, but also openly authorizing his followers to work with our primary global adversary against his political opponent.'

'Such a public clarion call certainly makes one wonder what Mr. Trump privately encouraged his advisers to do – and what they actually did – to win the election,' he wrote.

WHAT DOES LOSING A SECURITY CLEARANCE MEAN FOR FORMER SPYMASTER? Ex-government officials are conventionally able to retain their security clearances after they've departed their jobs in order to be able to provide consultation to their prior agencies. Sometimes, agencies call in ex-federal officials for advice on matters of national security or other topics. 'The purpose is not to benefit the individual. It's to benefit the government,' former Acting CIA Director Mike Morrell told CBS in July. 'So, for example, I go into CIA regularly and I help them think through issues, I talk to people, I'm there to assist in any variety of ways.' In the case of fired former officials, like former FBI Director James Comey, their clearance is stripped immediately. But ex-CIA directors and agents and other top-level officials are able to keep them in perpetuity. Issuing departments review individuals who have been granted clearance every five years to make sure they still meet the requirements to hold the security document. Private citizens can also apply for and obtain security clearance in order to win government contracts or represent government clients. Even the nation's former spy chiefs do not have access to the government's most sensitive information when they leave the CIA, however. They do not receive briefings on ongoing investigations, either, and can be denied access to those materials, said Morrell. Some do go to work for outside contractors which require clearances, and there are many examples of those who do - but none of the list of names given by the White House are in that category. Being stripped of clearance would keep affected individuals from continuing to be of service - if they were wanted. Morell told CBS, 'I also serve on a government commission that I could not serve on without having my clearances.' The reality is that Brennan and - if they are stripped of them - the other critics are not using their clearance at all. Trump is hardly going to have them in to help his agencies and none are doing work which involves access to secrets. Advertisement

Brennan concluded that '[t]he only questions that remain are whether the collusion that took place constituted criminally liable conspiracy, whether obstruction of justice occurred to cover up any collusion or conspiracy, and how many members of 'Trump Incorporated' attempted to defraud the government by laundering and concealing the movement of money into their pockets.'

Trump may not have helped his case with a Wall Street Journal interview on Wednesday in which he justified cutting off Brennan's access to state secrets.

The president tied his decision to the fact that Brennan and the others he's targeting were among the intelligence chiefs who justified a government-wide probe into then-unproven allegations that Russia was trying to interfere in the 2016 election.

The special counsel probe that emerged later as a consequence has angered Trump like few other developments in his White House tenure.

'Of course they say it's not an investigation. You know, in theory I'm not under investigation ... I'm not a target. But regardless, I think that whole, I call it the rigged witch hunt, [it] is a sham,' he told the Journal on Wednesday. 'And these people led it!'

'So I think it's something that had to be done,' Trump said.

Answering charges that hislist of targets is politically motivated, he claimed he 'would put a Republican on, too, if I thought they were incompetent or crazy.'

The White House announced Wednesday afternoon in an extraordinary slap at Brennan that his security clearance was being abruptlly terminated and other former spymasters' clearances were under review.

Brennan called that an effort to intimidate them all from exercising their First Amendment right to render criticism against the president.

Despite claiming to be muzzled, he immediately vowed in public not to relent.

'I've seen this type of behavior and actions on the part of foreign tyrants and despots and autocrats for many, many years during my CIA and national security career,' Brennan told MSNBC. 'I never, ever thought that I would see it here in the United States.'

Calling in to the network hours after the decision was revealed to the nation at a televised briefing at the White House, Brennan said, 'If Mr. Trump believes that this is going to lead me to just go away and be quiet, he is very badly mistaken.'

He called the move Trump's 'way of getting back at me and a bid 'to intimidate and suppress any criticism of him or his administration.'

Brennan also blasted the decision on Twitter, flexing his independence after the White House accused him of making 'wild outbursts on the internet and television' about the current administration.

'This action is part of a broader effort by Mr. Trump to suppress freedom of speech & punish critics. It should gravely worry all Americans, including intelligence professionals, about the cost of speaking out. My principles are worth far more than clearances. I will not relent,' he wrote.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced the stunning move from the White House briefing room podium as the building was engulfed in controversy over the new tell-all book penned by former aide Omarosa Manigault-Newman.

Sanders had been unable to guarantee a day earlier from the same podium that a tape would never emerge of Trump saying the N-word on the set of 'The Apprentice' or in some other context. Manigault-Newman has claimed to have heard such a recording.

Trump did not personally weigh in on the news until six hours later.

Even then, he just quoted former Secret Service agent and failed Republican politician Dan Bongino on Twitter.

'John Brennan is a stain on the Country, we deserve better than this,' Bongino said.

Trump told him, 'Thank you Dan, and good luck with the book!'

Sanders was the face of the clearance dispute on Wednesday after making the announcement about Brennan at a briefing where she withstood repeated questioning about why each of the officials targeted for review has been a prominent Trump critic or otherwise features in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe.

Fired Trump National Security Advisor and retired Gen. Mike Flynn, who has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, was notably left off the list of former officials who were considered a threat.

The chief Trump spokeswoman said clearances that were issued to nine current and former officials, including fired former FBI director James Comey, fired FBI agent Peter Strzok, current Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, ex-CIA Director Michael Hayden and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, are 'under review' by the president.

All are prominent Trump opponents, playing a role in the Russia probe Trump has termed a 'witch hunt.'

If the act was meant to silence Trump's critics, it did not have the intended effect. Clapper and Hayden immediately called into CNN. Brennan dialed into MSNBC.

The former CIA director kept up his criticism of Trump's character and spoke cryptically on the network about what he knows about Russian actions as he absorbed the decision he learned about only Wednesday.

'I must tell you that Mr. Trump's dishonesty, his lack of integrity, his nastiness, that mean spiritedness, the types of things that he has just tweeted out in the past 72 hours, the terms that he uses, this is not what I think of an American president, nor of America,' Brennan said.

Trump, pictured Monday at Fort Drum, N.Y., is at war with the former spymaster Brennan who has called him a virtual puppet of Russian President Vladimir Putin

Brennan blasted the decision on Twitter and said it should 'gravely worry all Americans'

IMBECILIC: Brennan tweeted last month that Trump's conduct with the Russian president was 'treasonous' and said he was 'in the pocket of Putin'

Brennan blasted Trump's 'venality' in a March tweet after the president gloated over the firing of senior FBI official Andrew McCabe

'I know some things that the Russians were involved in, but I certainly don't know all the things that Mr. Trump has been involved in over the years, and I do not pretend to have that knowledge,' he continued. 'He is the one, but clearly his actions are those of somebody who is seeking to prevent the full light of day being shown upon his past,' Brennan said, clearly linking the decision on his clearance to Mueller's probe.

'He may very well have a – a guilty conscience about the types of things that he has done in the past,' Brennan speculated. 'I don't know. He is the one who has to account for those previous actions and whether or not those actions ran afoul of – of ethics and of the law. And I don't know what he may be concerned about in terms of what might be divulged as part of this investigation or others. But as I have said repeatedly, I find his attitude and behavior toward Vladimir Putin and the Russians very, very puzzling and very, very irrational.'

Among the offenses the Trump statement cited were that Brennan 'leveraged his status' and made 'unfounded and outrageous allegations.' Sanders, reading Trump's statement, cited 'wild outbursts on the Internet and television' and 'increasingly frenzied commentary' – turning the tables on a critic just a day after the president called took flak for calling Omarosa a 'dog' on Twitter.

Wednesday's conversation-changing move came less than 24 hours after Sanders was forced to issue an unpredecented apology for an erroneous claim she made from the podium. She slammed African-American unemployment figures from the Obama era that were off by nearly 3 million.

She tweeted a mea culpa that prevented reporters from asking for a deeper explanation of who was to blame after the Council of Economic Advisers, also through Twitter, took the heat for incorrectly briefing her.

Sanders fielded just a single Omarosa-related question the following day as reporters in the room processed the unexpected and breaking news about Brennan.

Trump's statement on the former CIA chief initially carried a date of July 26 when the White House first distributed it to the press. The error either represented yet another case of poor proofreading by the White House or indicated the White House rushed out the statement at the last minute amid the Omarosa tell-all chaos.

Brennan, among other things, has said on TV and online that Trump is being manipulated by Russian President Vladimir Putin. He was among a handful of officials who were present and briefed in the earliest stages of the government's Russia probe of Trump officials during the 2016 campaign.

'Any benefits that senior officials might glean from consultations with Mr. Brennan are now outweighed by the risk posed by his erratic conduct and behavior,' Sanders said.

The White House crackdown on his clearance came after Brennan admonished Trump on Twitter for calling Omarosa a 'dog.'

Mr. Brennan has recently leveraged his status as a former high-ranking official with access to highly sensitive information to make a series of unfounded and outrageous allegations – wild outbursts on the Internet and television' – about the administration – White House statement

'It's astounding how often you fail to live up to minimum standards of decency, civility, & probity,' Brennan commented on Trump's tweet. 'Seems like you will never understand what it means to be president, nor what it takes to be a good, decent, & honest person. So disheartening, so dangerous for our Nation,' he wrote.

Brennan also hit back at Trump after he tweeted that it may be 'not presidential' to call Omarosa a 'lowlife' but did so anyway.

'You're absolutely right. If you were 'presidential,' you would focus on healing the rifts within our Nation, being truthful about the challenges we face, & showing the world that America is still that shining beacon of freedom, liberty, prosperity, & goodness that welcomes all,' Brennan wrote.

Sanders laid out the case for his clearance to be revoked in a lengthy statement just as reporters were girding to press her on Manigault-Newman's secret tapings of Trump and his aides.

Several other former officials who have criticized Trump and one DOJ official the president wants to fire also have their clearances under review.

Pressed on why only Trump opponents, and only Trump opponents, found themselves in the cross-hairs, she said that if issues arise for others, the White House would 'take a look and review those as well.'

'Mr. Brennan has a history that calls into question his objectivity and credibility. In 2014, for example, he denied to Congress that CIA officials under his supervision had improperly accessed the computer files of congressional staffers. He told the Council on Foreign Relations that the CIA would never do such a thing. The CIA's inspector general, however, contradicted Mr. Brennan directly, concluding unequivocally that officials had indeed improperly accessed the computer files of congressional staffers.

'More recently Mr. Brennan told Congress that the intelligence community did not make use of the so-called 'Steele Dossier' in an assessment regarding the 2016 election, an assertion contradicted by at least two other senior officials in the intelligence community and all of the facts,' she said.

The former FBI director practically urged voters to oust Trump and his supporters from office in the statement that said, 'American voters must not shrug off or be distracted from the terrible behaviors of this president, who lies to the American people every day, encourages racism, is a misogynist'

'Additionally, Mr. Brennan has recently leveraged his status as a former high-ranking official with access to highly sensitive information to make a series of unfounded and outrageous allegations – wild outbursts on the Internet and television' – about the administration,' she continued.

'Mr. Brennan's lying and recent conduct, characterized by increasingly frenzied commentary, is totally inconsistent with access to the nation's most closely held secrets and facilities the very aim of our adversaries, which is to sow division and chaos,' she said.

Sanders added, reading from the Trump statement: 'I have also begun to review the more general question of the access to classified information by government officials. As part of this review, I am evaluating action with respect to the following individuals: James Clapper, James Comey, Michael Hayden, Sally Yates, Susan Rice, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page and Bruce Ohr. Security clearances for those who still have them may be revoked, and those who have already lost their security clearance may not be able to have it reinstated.'

Brennan also shot back during a call-in to MSNBC, where he is a paid commentator.

'I'm very concerned about what his might portend,' Brennan said. 'I am concerned that if security clearances are now going to become a political tool' it will 'send a very, very chilling message,' he added.

Brennan said he was 'still absorbing' the move, which the former head of the CIA learned from Sanders' briefing, not through official channels.

He said he wasn't sure whether he would try to challenge the move, as can be done through the courts.

'It's not going to affect my speaking out, my criticisms of Mr. Trump. I'm going to try to do it in a professional way,' Brennan said.

Comey hasn't had a security clearance for many months. McCabe, a former top FBI official, had his clearance deactivated when he was fired from the FBI, said his spokesman Melissa Schwartz when Sanders first said clearances were on the table.

On CNN, where he is paid to provide commentary, Clapper said that he has not personally had access to current intelligence since January of 2017 when he left the government.

'It seems like they're kind of making up the criterion as they go here,' he said,'on a very individual basis.'

Clapper said the threat of having their clearances revoked is an 'infringement of our right to speak, and apparently the appropriateness of being critical of this president. of which -- in one degree or another, all of us have been.

'I thought the mention of Jim Comey and Andy McCabe, who don't have their clearances any more, it is sort of a cover for naming them in the first place, which was a non-sequitur.'

RUSH JOB: President Trump's statement on Brennan was given to reporters with a nearly month-old date – a possible indication it was rushed out amid the political chaos of the week during Omarosa's book tour

Trump's statement cited Brennan's 'wild outbursts on the internet and television' as a reason for yanking his security clearances

He vowed, like Brennan, to keep speaking out about actions he disagrees with in the administration.

'I don't plan to stop speaking,' he said. 'There are some things I've agreed with that this administration's taken, actions they have taken, but lots of things that I don't agree with. So, if they're saying that I can't -- the only way I can speak is to be in an adulation mode of this president, I'm sorry, I don't think I can sign up for that.'

Comey said in a statement that he posted to Twitter that Trump is once again 'sending a message that he will punish people who disagree with him and reward those who praise him.'

The president is also evaluating clearances of other critics, including former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former FBI Director James Comey

'In a democracy, security clearances should not be used as pawns in a petty political game to distract voters from even bigger problems.'

The former FBI director practically urged voters to oust Trump and his supporters from office in the statement that said, 'American voters must not shrug off or be distracted from the terrible behaviors of this president, who lies to the American people every day, encourages racism, is a misogynist and always puts his own interests above those of the United States of America.'

'Politicians enabling this president should be held accountable in future elections,' he added.

John McLaughlin, the former Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, also slammed the decision on MSNBC – and noted that the action could lead to a court case if Brennan wants to push the issue.

He said the message was: 'Be careful what you say if you have a clearance and if you're worried about having it revoked.'

Sanders announced the clearance revocation at the top of her briefing, which was suddenly announce just an hour before it was scheduled to being as the White House reeled from criticism that it forced aides to sign non-disclosure agreements that prohibit them from disparaging the president.

Hayden noted the irony on an interview later with CNN, saying, 'To bring two stories that are current full circle and to touch one another, it's almost as if they wanted us to at least implicitly sign a no disparagement agreement.'