Donald Trump says CIA Director John Brennan might be the leaker of ‘fake news’ against him

CIA Director John Brennan is briefing US President Barack Obama in the Oval Office of the White House. (File photo)

Incoming US President Donald Trump has denounced outgoing CIA Director John Brennan, saying he might be the person who has been leaking “fake news” against him.

The president-elect made the remarks in a statement on his Twitter page after Brennan warned Trump on Sunday to choose his words carefully, and slammed him for comparing the US intelligence community to Nazi Germany.  

In a tweet on Sunday night, Trump quoted a headline that read, “CIA's Brennan warns Trump, says he doesn't 'fully understand' Russia threat,” and added his own comment.

“Oh really, couldn’t do … much worse - just look at Syria (red line), Crimea, Ukraine and the build-up of Russian nukes. Not good! Was this the leaker of Fake News?” he asked in the second tweet.

Last week, Trump accused US spy agencies of using Nazi tactics over leaking “fake news" and "phony stuff” about him to the media. 

His remarks were made after a news website, BuzzFeed, published a 35-page document containing unverified information -- from an alleged former British spy – that claimed that Trump was caught in a compromising position in Russia.

The document also claimed that Russia is in possession of "compromising" personal and financial information about Trump which it might use to blackmail the US president-elect.

Trump described the published material about him as “fake” and a “political witch hunt,” and said that the leaks from the US intelligence community to some media outlets were reminiscent of Nazi Germany.

Russia also rejected the BuzzFeed document as “completely fake,” adding that Moscow does not possess any blackmail file on Trump containing footage of him in a “compromising” position in a Moscow hotel.

But, Brennan said on Sunday that Trump needs to be disciplined about what he says publicly and censured him for comparing the actions of US intelligence agencies to those of Nazis.

According to American author and investigative journalist Dave Lindorff, the CIA worked against Trump because the spy agency is run by political appointees of the Obama administration.

“What’s basically at works here is that the CIA is run by political appointees of the Obama administration. It gets a little tricky because historically that’s not a position -- the CIA director is not a position -- that is changed at a whim by each president as they come in.  It’s supposed to be above politics, like the FBI director,” Lindorff told Press TV last month.

“But Trump has the ability to do that when he comes in, he can appoint the new CIA director. He has already named the suggested person. So he and the current CIA seem to be at logger heads,” the analyst explained.