Trump Humiliates James Clapper With Vindictive Move

In a cold move against an old nemesis, President Donald Trump denied former CIA Director James Clapper the chance to see one of his favorite friends stride across the stage for his graduation. But since Clapper’s best bud is a dog, he may not have been missed.

Susan, a yellow lab working for the CIA’s K9 detection program, got her degree in field work this week after completing her thesis in sniffing out car bombs and suicide vests. Officials were reportedly as eager to put her to work as the good girl was about being rewarded with tasty treats rather than money.

The distinguished dog was the pride and joy of Clapper, who sponsored her through a nonprofit organization that helps place service dogs with law enforcement and the disabled. His participation did not go unnoticed by the Trump administration, which reportedly denied him permission to attend Susan’s ceremony.

Clapper, who has called the Russiagate conspiracy more serious than Watergate, named Susan after his late wife, a former NSA agent who was married to Clapper for more than five decades.

After retiring before the start of President Trump’s first term, Clapper fueled Trump’s suspicion about him participating in a Clinton-Obama nexus of opposition research when, in 2019, he agreed with former FBI Director Andrew McCabe that Trump may have been a “Russian asset.”

Those statements and others came back to haunt him this month when, a day before Susan’s graduation, he received a notice from the dog-training organization that his name had been crossed off the guest list.

The executive order came directly from the President of the United States, he was told, according to The Atlantic.

Adding insult to injury, CIA personnel took the EO to mean that Clapper should be banned from all agency property.

Clapper did not respond to a request for comment from the outlet, and the reporter, Shane Harris, claimed that it was not Clapper who tipped him off about the embarrassing exile. And while Harris wrote critically that the incident “illustrates how powerfully this administration seeks retribution,” Trump supporters may instead see a worthy comeuppance against a powerful individual who furthered the baseless narrative that the president was under the thumb of Russian adversaries.

It’s unclear whether Clapper is a focus of the U.S. Justice Department’s ongoing investigation into former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey. However, Trump’s treatment of him over a canine graduation undoubtedly shows how much contempt he holds for Clapper years after his departure from the CIA.