“And as I often tell young officers at CIA, I have never seen a time when our country faced such a wide variety of threats to our national security. Run your fingers along almost any portion of the map from the Asia Pacific to North Africa and you will quickly find a flashpoint with global implications.” This bold and revealing statement by CIA director John Brennan during testimony given to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence [Thursday] was a bold and radically significant departure from the narrative espoused by the Obama administration.

Just three days after the mass murder in Orlando, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said in a press conference that “[t]he president does believe it is important that his successor is somebody who recognizes that our country is safer than it was eight years ago, that we enhanced our standing around the world, that we’ve strengthened our alliances — that we have refined and improved and strengthened our homeland security…”

When such opposing takes on the state of national security are presented, they both can’t be right. Director Brennan sees nearly every shred of intelligence on the topic while President Obama reportedly only gets his daily intel brief about forty percent of the time. Odds are pretty high that the CIA director is right and that both the president and his press secretary are living in a fantasy world.

Brennan went on to address the growing threat of ISIS, which the administration is claiming is “shrinking” and “on the defensive.” Brennan testified [Thursday], “Unfortunately, despite all our progress against ISIL on the battlefield and in the financial realm, our efforts have not reduced the group’s terrorism capability and global reach. The resources needed for terrorism are very modest, and the group would have to suffer even heavier losses of territory, manpower, and money for its terrorist capacity to decline significantly.”

Clearly, Director Brennan is breaking ranks with the Obama administration on this issue and seems more interested in being truthful than being a lackey for the president’s administration. Furthermore, as Brennan has testified that ISIS remains a global threat, one that is growing and not shrinking despite Obama’s claims, it is highly likely that he is in possession of intelligence that there will be more domestic terror attacks as well as attacks throughout Europe.

Brennan is taking significant steps to help alert the people who rely on him and his agency to provide indications and warnings of impending danger. We can guess that he does not want to be known as the CIA director who lulled the nation into a false sense of security when he had the chance to speak up.

Originally published here.

This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.