Former CIA director John Brennan says he has no clue why he’s being targeted in an FBI probe related to the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Speaking to MSNBC’s Deadline, Brennan claimed the probe into him and former FBI director James Comey, which Fox News reports includes allegations of making false statements to Congress, is politically motivated.
“I know nothing about this reported investigation or referral to the DOJ other than what I’ve read in these press reports, these leaks,” Brennan said. “Secondly, nobody from the FBI or Department of Justice or CIA has reached out to me at all, so I am just waiting to hear more about what this might be.”
“This is, unfortunately, a very sad and tragic example of the continued politicization of the intelligence community and the national security process. And quite frankly, I’m really shocked that individuals are willing to sacrifice their reputations, their credibility, their decency to continue doing Donald Trump’s bidding on something that is clearly just politically based,” he added.
Reports of the investigations into alleged wrongdoing leaked from Department of Justice sources after the DOJ and FBI came under intense scrutiny from Trump loyalists and MAGA figures, among others, for stating that there is no so-called “client list” belonging to the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
The FBI and DOJ also confirmed in a memo that no further charges will be brought in connection with Epstein’s offenses, and that the billionaire financier died by suicide, rather than being murdered, in his New York prison cell in August 2019.
Brennan was head of the CIA when U.S. intelligence concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin had intervened in the 2016 election by pushing online disinformation aimed at swaying the outcome in favor of Trump over Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
Trump fired Comey as head of the FBI in May 2017, during Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s federal probe into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia in the 2016 election. The Mueller report found no evidence that anyone from Trump’s inner circle conspired or coordinated with Russia to influence the election, but did cite the firing of Comey as a possible example of obstruction of justice.
In 2023, Special Counsel John Durham’s report into the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation harshly criticized the agency’s justification for launching the Trump-Russia probe, but concluded there was no conspiracy to frame the president.
Speaking to MSNBC, Brennan said he’s testified “in front of many, many” congressional committees in the House and Senate over the years and has frequently defended the CIA’s role in the Russia investigations.
“It was a challenging time, but also one where I think the people who actually worked this, both in terms of trying to collect intelligence prior to the election and then those who put together the intelligence community assessment, really showed the best of what the intelligence community and the CIA are made of,” Brennan said. “So again, I am clueless about what it is exactly that they may be investigating me for.”
The FBI and DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast.
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