I'm not a big fan of John Brennan, as some of you may know. He was a partisan hack before he became CIA Director, and continues to be one after leaving that position, so there's no reason to believe he suddenly became nonpartisan for 4 years as the Director under Obama. Especially since he has a 4 year history in the job of using his position and power to influence and subvert the political process.
I would not be even a little bit surprised to find out that the whole notion of Trump-Russia collusion was cooked up and served on disposal paper plates by Brennan. Keep in mind that Brennan his evil twin James Clapper and their unholy stepchild James Comey, the ones who are now ranting and screaming the loudest, were the ones in charge of the front door that Russia walked through to meddle in the 2016 election. It's blatantly obvious to me that they're either trying to cover up their own gross incompetence or their own culpability.
As for security clearances, I think I saw where Rand Paul was set to meet with Trump and press him about changing the rules on that. Nearly everyone in the Obama administration who had Top Secret security clearances still has the same clearance. Same with the other two main types of clearances, Secret and Confidential. As a general rule, as a courtesy, people get to keep their clearances when they leave their government jobs. It allows them to review their own work, for speaking engagements, books, research, etc. But like anything else, it can also be abused And that's likely what's happening with far too many of Obama's people.
After the OK City bombing I got a certain type of Top Secret clearance when I worked on hard drive data recovery. It was TS/SCI or Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information. Meaning, it was top secret, but only for the information I was working on. I didn't have wide or blanket clearance for any top secret stuff anyone else was working on.
My clearance was renewed as a matter of routine course when I did the same kind of data recovery at the Pentagon after the 911 plane attack. Again it was an SCI top secret clearance, only for the stuff I was working on. The guy sitting right next to me had a different SCI clearance. We didn't discuss.
Even though my job ended the day before the invasion of Afghanistan, I still kept the clearance, and it was renewed again after 5 years in 2006, and then again 5 years after that in 2011. It was not renewed in 2016.
Secret clearance, one step down from Top Secret, is generally reviewed and renewed after 10 years, and mine was renewed in 2006, but not in 2016.
Confidential clearances are renewed every 15 years, and mine was renewed in 2011. I still have it.
I haven't had any need or desire to review any classified information since my job ended at the Pentagon, at least not any that I'm actually cleared and have a need to see, but by retaining the Confidential clearance, it more if less keeps my mouth shut on anything from Top Secret on down. Not that there's anything to tell. It was pretty boring stuff actually.
So I fully understand why Brennan, Clapper, Lynch, Yates, Rice and all the others still have their clearances. But I also understand that regardless of whatever clearance you have, anything you have access to is still on a need to know basis, and I think there's a lot of stuff these people have access to without necessarily having a need Clearly, anyone who shows an animus towards the president shouldn't have access to classified information.
The president in the one who gets to set the rules for classified information and for clearances. He gets to decide who gets to see stuff and who doesn't (which is why the whole Jared Kushner security clearance extravaganza is hilarious to me). Hopefully he will adjust the rules on courtesy clearances for former employees