Former CIA Director John Brennan raised the possibility in a Saturday interview that Russian President Vladimir Putin could have planted a chip in the presidential limousine when he joined President Trump for a ride to their summit on Friday.
In an interview on MSNBC’s “The Briefing with Jen Psaki,” the Obama-era CIA chief criticized Trump’s approach to the historic summit with Putin and said he hopes the Secret Service did a thorough sweep after they huddled in the backseat of the vehicle.
“The fact that he was given a ride then in the Presidential limousine, The Beast — I certainly hope the Secret Service has swept that vehicle very well, in terms of any type of, you know, small microchip that might have been put in the vehicle,” Brennan said.
Brennan earlier discussed Putin’s experience as a KGB agent and described the Russian leader as an astute manipulator.
Asked for his assessment of the “optics” of the summit, Brennan said, “It’s clear that Vladimir Putin felt very confident from the arrival in terms of how he was greeted.”
“Again, an international pariah, a war criminal, who was basically embraced by the president of the United States on a red carpet in the United States,” Brennan continued. “So I think you could see on Putin’s face, he felt very, very comfortable.”
Trump greeted Putin at the summit on a red carpet spread across the runway of a U.S. air base, and the U.S. president clapped as the Russian leader approached. The two men shook hands, and Putin joined Trump in his presidential limo as they traveled to the summit to discuss an end to the war in Ukraine.
Brennan called the display “shameful” and said he thinks Trump “realized throughout the day that he was getting played by Putin.”
“But also, I think Donald Trump just put himself in this position. He was the one who offered this meeting. He was the one who invited Putin to US territory. He was the one that put together the summit that clearly there was very little preparation for, and they came out empty handed,” Brennan said.
“When I look at what happened today, it was embarrassing. I think it was shameful, but also I think it’s very, very worrisome, from the standpoint of the United States, the leader of the United States, engaged with President Putin and came away with, apparently, nothing at this point,” he continued, noting that Trump effectively “normalized Vladimir Putin for all the tremendous suffering and the devastation that he has wrought in Ukraine.”
