US President Donald Trump slammed former CIA Director John Brennan in response to Brennan's criticism of the president's "performance" at the joint press conference with Russian president Vladimir Putin Monday.
"I think Brennan is a very bad guy, and if you look at it, a lot of things happened under his watch," Trump said in an interview with Fox News. "I think he's a very bad person."
Trump extended his criticism to many former and current intelligence officials, including former FBI Director James Comey and disgraced FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. Of the three, Strzok is the only individual who remains employed by the law enforcement agency.
"You look at the deception, the lies. These are people that in my opinion are truly — they're bad people. And they're being exposed for what they are," Trump told Fox News.
Strzok and Page, who investigated Trump's alleged Russia ties, have been revealed to be biased against then-candidate Trump after their text messages were released to the public, and in the process the two were also revealed to be romantically involved despite both being married.
Following the historic summit with Putin in Helsinki, Finland, Brennan attacked Trump for not pressing the Russian president about the question of alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election.
"Donald Trump's press conference performance in Helsinki rises to & exceeds the threshold of ‘high crimes & misdemeanors,'" Brennan tweeted Monday.
"It was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were Trump's comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin."
