WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has issued new subpoenas in a Florida-based investigation into perceived adversaries of President Trump and the U.S. government response to Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.
An initial wave of subpoenas in November asked recipients for documents related to the preparation of a U.S. intelligence community assessment that detailed a sweeping, multi-prong effort by Moscow to help Trump defeat Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.
Though the first subpoenas requested documents from the months surrounding the January 2017 publication of the Obama administration intelligence assessment, the latest subpoenas seek any records from the years since then, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to The Associated Press to discuss a non-public demand from investigators.
The Justice Department declined to comment Tuesday.
The subpoenas reflect continued investigative activity in one of several criminal inquiries the Justice Department has undertaken into Trump’s political opponents. An array of former intelligence and law enforcement officials have received subpoenas in the investigation. Lawyers for former CIA Director John Brennan, who helped oversee the drafting of the assessment and who has been called “crooked as hell” by Trump, have said they have been informed he is a target but have not been told of any “legally justifiable basis for undertaking this investigation.”
The intelligence community assessment, published in the final days of the Obama administration, found that Russia had developed a “clear preference” for Trump in the 2016 election and that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered an influence campaign with goals of undermining confidence in American democracy and harming Clinton’s chance for victory.
That conclusion, and a related investigation into whether the 2016 Trump campaign colluded with Russia to sway the outcome of the election, have long been among the Republican president’s chief grievances and he has vowed retribution against the government officials involved in the inquiries. Former FBI Director James Comey was indicted by the Trump administration Justice Department last year on false statement and obstruction charges, but the case was later dismissed.
Multiple government reports, including bipartisan congressional reviews and a criminal investigation by former special counsel Robert Mueller, have found that Russia interfered in Trump’s favor through a hack-and-leak operation of Democratic emails as well as a covert social media campaign aimed at sowing discord and swaying American public opinion. Mueller’s report found that the Trump campaign actively welcomed the Russian help, but it did not establish that Russian operatives and Trump or his associates conspired to tip the election in his favor.
The Trump administration has freshly scrutinized the intelligence community assessment in part because a classified version of it incorporated in its annex a summary of the “Steele dossier,” a compilation of Democratic-funded opposition research that was assembled by former British spy Christopher Steele and was later turned over to the FBI. That research into Trump’s potential links to Russia included uncorroborated rumors and salacious gossip, and Trump has long held up its weaknesses in an effort to discredit the entire Russia investigation.
A declassified CIA tradecraft review ordered by current Director John Ratcliffe and released last July faults Brennan’s oversight of the assessment.
The review does not challenge the conclusion of Russian election interference but chides Brennan for the fact that the classified version referenced the Steele dossier.
Brennan testified to Congress, and also wrote in his memoir, that he was opposed to citing the dossier in the intelligence assessment since neither its substance nor sources had been validated, and he has said the dossier did not inform the judgments of the assessment. He maintains the FBI pushed for its inclusion.
The new CIA review seeks to cast Brennan’s views in a different light, asserting that he “showed a preference for narrative consistency over analytical soundness” and brushed aside concerns over the dossier because he believed it conformed “with existing theories.” It quotes him, without context, as having stated in writing that “my bottomline is that I believe that the information warrants inclusion in the report.”
In a letter last December addressed to the chief judge of the Southern District of Florida, where the investigation is based, Brennan’s lawyers challenged the underpinnings of the investigation, questioning what basis prosecutors had for opening the inquiry in Florida and saying they had received no clarity from prosecutors about what potential crimes were even being investigated.
“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,” the lawyers said.
Tucker writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Alanna Durkin Richer contributed to this report.
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