https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/how-important-is-the-protest-against-trump-from-the-national-security-establishment

The blowback intensified on Thursday, when seven former C.I.A. directors issued a public letter supporting Brennan and denouncing the President’s decision. “We all agree that the president’s action regarding John Brennan and the threats of similar actions against other former officials has nothing to do with who should and should not hold security clearances—and everything to do with an attempt to stifle free speech,” the letter said. The letter’s signatories included William Webster, George Tenet, Porter Goss, Michael Hayden, Leon Panetta, David Petraeus, and Robert Gates, whose tenures as the head of the C.I.A. spanned five Presidents, from Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama. (Five former deputy directors of the Agency also signed the letter.)

That is quite a list. Even the stoutest Trump defenders will have difficulty describing the letter as a partisan political ambush, although, of course, that will not stop them from trying. And the letter wasn’t the only protest of its kind directed at Trump this week, or even the most cutting.

Also on Thursday, William McRaven, a retired Navy admiral who oversaw the 2011 Navy seal raid that killed Osama bin Laden, published an op-ed at the Washington Post, which begins, “Dear Mr. President, Former CIA director John Brennan, whose security clearance you revoked on Wednesday, is one of the finest public servants I have ever known.” The piece went on: “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.”