Criminal Probe of Obama CIA Director John Brennan ‘Heating Up’ and Emerging as ‘Serious’ Priority for Todd Blanche’s DOJ

The request by the Department of Justice to the House Intelligence Committee for records related to the former director of the CIA during the Obama Administration, John Brennan, suggests a growing prosecutorial focus on one of President Trump’s most ardent critics. Last week Congressman Jim Jordan, who chairs the House Oversight Committee told Fox News’s Sean Hannity that the investigation into Mr. Brennan, a paid contributor to MSNOW, formerly MSNBC, 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. Brennan ran the CIA from 2013 to 2017, when he was fired by Mr. Trump. Mr. Brennan, a repeated target of Mr. Trump’s wrath, was a key figure in the investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 election, having launched a probe of the matter when he was still CIA director and then passed on information to the FBI for its Crossfire Hurricane investigation. He also played a central role in the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) that found with “high confidence” that Russia interfered in the election to undermine Hillary Clinton and help Mr. Trump.Mr. Brennan was also a signatory to the notorious October 2020 letter, signed by him and 50 other intelligence community officials, falsely claiming that emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop have “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”In October of last year. Mr. Jordan issued a criminal referral for Mr. Brennan. That referral alleges that Mr. Brennan lied to Congress in 2023 when he denied that a lurid — and later discredited — document known as the Steele dossier was used to support the 2017 ICA. Even as Mr. Brennan continues his regular, MS NOW appearances denouncing Mr. Trump, he is facing increased scrutiny from multiple quarters, suggesting a broader push to prosecute. Last month, the DOJ requested records related to Mr. Brennan from the House Intelligence Committee. A Republican spokesman explained last month that the lawmakers “voted to report out classified hearing transcripts at the request of the U.S. Department of Justice for an ongoing investigation.” The committee is also assisting on “other topics related to the Trump-Russia collusion hoax.” The Times reports that Mr. Brennan’s file has been an active one under the former attorney general, Pam Bondi, and the incumbent, Todd Blanche. The Gray Lady reckons that it is not a “slam-dunk case.” The criminal probe against Mr. Brennan is being led by the United States attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Jason Reding Quiñones, an appointee of Mr. Trump. House Republicans allege — and Mr. Brennan denies — that he pushed analysts to append the lurid Steele dossier to the assessment and otherwise doctored it to incriminate Mr. Trump. Mr. Brennan told Nicolle Wallace, on the cable network then known as MSNBC, over the summer that “it is hard to believe that here we are eight and a half years after the 2016 presidential election, we’re still going over this ground that has been, I think, fairly well and exhaustively plowed.”Mr. Brennan has in recent years 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.” He has also described Mr.Trump as “drunk on power” and “unserious.” In 2018 he ventured that “Russia could have something on President Donald Trump” and in September vowed that “I’m not going to be intimidated by the likes of Donald Trump.” Mr. Brennan’s lawyers, CNN reports, “have been bracing for a possible indictment for months.” One decision for the DOJ, though, is where to bring a possible case. While Florida is more friendly terrain for the Administration — Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the Mar-a-Lago charges against Mr. Trump brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith — it is not clear if the government can establish jurisdiction over Mr. Brennan in the Sunshine State. The natural home for a case centered on perjury to Congress would be the District of Columbia, but the ultramarine capital — more than 90 percent of its vote went for Vice President Harris — has not been friendly terrain for Trump Administration prosecutors. D.C.’s chief federal trial judge, the Obama Administration appointee James Boasberg, has been a thorn in Mr. Trump’s side. Grand juries have also been uncooperative. In February one refused to indict six Democratic lawmakers for a video urging servicemembers to ignore illegal orders.A case against Mr. Brennan would likely take a similar shape to the one the Trump Administration has tried to prosecute against the former FBI director, James Comey. His tenure overlapped with Mr. Brennan’s. Mr. Comey was charged with lying to Congress in 2020 about leaks relating to Mr. Mueller’s investigation. The case, though, was dismissed after the prosecutor in charge, Lindsey Halligan, was found to have been unlawfully appointed. The DOJ has appealed that ruling. 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 told House investigators in 2017 that Russia “brazenly interfered” in US elections but he stopped shy of calling it “collusion.”Mr. Mueller’s final report reached the same conclusion, and while not exactly exonerating Mr. Trump it did not recommend that any charges be filed.

Criminal Probe of Obama CIA Director John Brennan ‘Heating Up’ and Emerging as ‘Serious’ Priority for Todd Blanche’s DOJ

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