First, President Trump revoked the security clearance of former CIA Director John Brennan. Then Retired Adm. William McRaven dared Trump to revoke his clearance. Now another ex-CIA chief, Michael Hayden, is joining that band of virtue-signalers, which now stands at 14.

Hayden appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union,” with host Jake Tapper, when Tapper asked Hayden if he agreed with McRaven’s challenge to Trump.

Hayden said he “would be honored” if Trump decided to revoke his security clearance, too.

This isn’t the first time Michael Hayden went self-righteous on Trump, either. You may remember his tweet from June, when he compared illegal immigrants to victims of the Holocaust.

Other governments have separated mothers and children pic.twitter.com/tvlBkGjT0h

— Gen Michael Hayden (@GenMhayden) June 16, 2018

He defended that comparison on CNN, saying he “wanted to grab people’s attention.” But then when host John Berman pointed out that “the Jews who walked through that door, did not choose to walk through that door,” Hayden backtracked a little:

“I’m not saying our needle is anywhere near the red. I’m not claiming that at all. . . . And if I overachieve by comparing it to Birkenau, I apologize to anyone who may have felt offended.”

But not every former intelligence chief is ready to board the train with McRaven and Hayden.

Appearing with Michael Hayden on Sunday’s “State of the Union,” former National Intelligence director James Clapper indicated wasn’t ready to stand with Hayden. Maybe it’s because Clapper is on Trump’s list of those who might lose their clearance:

“John and his rhetoric have become an issue in and of itself. John is subtle like a freight train and he’s gonna say what’s on his mind.” 

And then Adm. Mike Mullen, former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, appeared on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, singing a cautious tune as well. While Mullen is concerned about Trump creating an “enemies list,” à la Richard Nixon, he finds that Brennan dug his own grave:

“Well, I think for John and he — and John is an extraordinary servant of the country, but I think he has been incredibly critical of the president and I think that has put him in a political place which actually does more damage for the intelligence community, which is apolitical, even as he’s retired. So, I really don’t support him being as critical of the president as he has been.”

Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew C. McCarthy has also weighed in on the Brennan kerfuffle, writing this:

“The yanking of Brennan’s security clearance is not only warranted, it is way overdue.”

Now this is not to say that McCarthy necessarily agrees with the way Trump has politicized security clearances — he doesn’t. But he finds that politicizing intelligence in the way that Brennan has is much worse.

McCarthy also goes through a laundry list of why Brennan should’ve had his clearance revoked long ago.

For example, Brennan ordered the CIA to keep under wraps most of the documents seized in the Bin Laden raid. It turns out that they weren’t favorable to Obama’s narrative that al-Qaeda was ‘decimated.’ Following that, in 2015 intelligence analysts complained that their reports about ISIS and al-Qaeda were being altered. Senior officials saw that these reports didn’t go along with the Obama spin, so they did some tweaking.

This happened under Brennan’s watch; rather than being apolitical, he would do anything to protect his boss.

Finally, McCarthy cites how Brennan purged information about Islamic ideology from security training manuals — he said it was because “jihad” only meant “holy struggle.”

Now I don’t particularly like the idea of Trump pulling security clearances, even though as Adm. Mullen noted, he has the right to do so. Trump’s actions do seem petty, and, like Mullen, I also think they smack too much of Nixonian enemies lists. However, holding a security clearance is a privilege, not a right. Brennan’s current political antics, as well as his whitewashing of his former boss’s failures, show that he’s not an apolitical player. Intelligence should be free of political bias, which Brennan is not, either now or in the past. Neither, apparently, is Michael Hayden. But, as Andrew McCarthy notes, Hayden is only poking at the bear. Brennan, on the other hand, openly wants to bring the president down. And that’s a whole other animal.