Criminal Charges May Be Imminent for an Obama Official, John Brennan, as Key Prosecutor Is Removed and Probe Reportedly Accelerates

The removal of the career federal prosecutor leading the criminal investigation into Obama-era CIA director John Brennan signals that the Department of Justice is poised to act against Mr. Brennan — and wants the right team in place to press a case. The shakeup comes in the office of the United States attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Jason Reding Quiñones. The departing prosecutor, CNN reports, is Maria Medetis Long, who was helming the probe into Mr. Brennan, who served as President Obama’s CIA director, for allegedly lying to Congress. The investigation centers on a 2017 intelligence assessment — launched by Mr. Brennan during the 2016 campaign — that found Russia interfered in the presidential election to help Mr. Trump.Ms. Long, CNN claims, “resisted pressure to quickly bring charges” against Mr. Brennan. The case, according to the network, “is moving ahead but not likely on the rapid timeline that top Justice Department officials have sought” because Ms. Medetis and other officials reportedly “don’t believe the case is a strong one.” The shakeup comes as Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche seeks to advance President Trump’s prosecutorial priorities.Mr. Brennan not only had a central role in the investigation of Russia’s role in the 2016 election. He also became, after leaving government service, a public evangelist for the narrative that the Russians helped Mr. Trump defeat Hillary Clinton. In 2017, Mr. Brennan told House investigators that Russia “brazenly interfered” in the 2016 vote, although he stopped short of calling that interference “collusion.”This fall, Mr. Trump included Mr. Brennan, who is currently a paid MS NOW contributor and who excoriates the president on air, alongside the former FBI director, James Comey, as members of “Obama’s Russia HOAX Treason Club.” Mr. Trump alleges that a cabal of Obama national security officials constructed a false narrative that he was an illegitimate president, elevated to office by Russian chicanery. Earlier this month Congressman Jim Jordan told Fox News that the investigation into Mr. Brennan is “heating up” and that “Maybe there’s ultimately going to be some accountability for Brennan.” He added that “I think it’s getting serious here.” Mr. Jordan has issued a criminal referral of Mr. Brennan to the DOJ. The referral alleges that Mr. Brennan lied when he denied that the infamous Steele dossier was used to support that 2017 intelligence assessment.That assessment found with “high confidence” that Russia interfered in the election to undermine Secretary Hillary Clinton and help Mr. Trump. Mr. Brennan passed the assessment’s findings to the FBI for its “Crossfire Hurricane” probe, which secretly began in the summer of 2016, at the height of the presidential campaign. The Obama officials are believed to have been preparing for criminal cases against Mr. Trump and his aides under a possible Clinton Justice Department.Some four years later, when Mr. Trump was in the final stretch of his the 2020 campaign, Mr. Brennan also claimed alongside some 50 other intelligence community officials that the emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” That was false. The investigation into Mr. Brennan is hardly in its infancy. Mr. Reding Quiñones’s office has issued subpoenas and requested documents from Congress. A natural next step would be reaching out to witnesses who can help the government build its case. Reuters reports on Thursday that the “FBI plans to question roughly a half-dozen witnesses.”The departure of Ms. Medetis Long bears a superficial resemblance to the resignation in September of the former top prosecutor at the Eastern District of Virginia, Erik Siebert. He reportedly left the job over a reluctance to bring charges against Mr. Comey and New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, being investigated for perjury and mortgage fraud, respectively. His successor, Lindsey Halligan, had no such hesitation, but she was ruled unlawfully appointed and the cases were dismissed. The DOJ has appealed.Mr. Reding Quiñones has been confirmed by the Senate, so any potential case against Mr. Brennan will not be hamstrung by a similar challenge. In a statement following the departure of Ms. Medetis Long the DOJ explains that personnel changes are common in order that “offices can most effectively allocate resources. “It is completely healthy and normal to change members of legal teams.”Mr. Brennan’s attorneys have written that “While it is mystifying how the prosecutors could possibly believe there is any legally justifiable basis for undertaking this investigation, they have done nothing to explain that mystery.” Mr. Brennan has likened the president to a “foreign tyrant” and a “despot” and has accused him of resorting to tactics “taken right out of the authoritarian’s playbook.”CNN relates that Mr. Brennan has been “bracing for a possible indictment for months.” Earlier this year Ms. Medetis Long secured a life sentence against Ryan Routh, the man who tried to assassinate Mr. Trump on a golf course.

Criminal Charges May Be Imminent for an Obama Official, John Brennan, as Key Prosecutor Is Removed and Probe Reportedly Accelerates

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