The FBI is reportedly probing former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey over their actions related to the Trump-Russia investigation of the 2016 election.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe made referrals for investigation and potential prosecution of the former top intelligence officials to FBI Director Kash Patel. The bureau has opened criminal investigations into both Brennan and Comey, though the scope of those investigations is unclear, Department of Justice officials told Fox News.
Last week, Ratcliffe declassified a “tradecraft review” of the 2016 investigation into Russian election meddling and President Donald Trump. The review determined that the investigation may have been sullied by corruption from the start.
Former President Barack Obama ordered Brennan, Comey, and then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to look into Russian attempts to meddle in the 2016 presidential election, and what links, if any, those attempts may have had with the Trump campaign. Obama’s intelligence trio cut corners and froze out most of the rest of the United States intelligence community from the assessment in the atypical investigation, according to the memo.
The after-action report identified “multiple procedural anomalies” such as “a highly compressed production timeline, stringent compartmentation, and excessive involvement of agency heads.” The procedural oddities undermined the integrity and credibility of the CIA, the report said.
Brennan took the lead on the assessment. He overrode the advice of senior officials at the CIA who recommended not including the unsubstantiated Steele Dossier in the final report
“Despite these objections, Brennan showed a preference for narrative consistency over analytical soundness,” Ratcliffe’s review says. “When confronted with specific flaws in the Dossier by the two mission center leaders — one with extensive operational experience and the other with a strong analytic background — he appeared more swayed by the Dossier’s general conformity with existing theories than by legitimate tradecraft concerns.”
After the review was completed, its findings motivated Ratcliffe to refer Brennan to the FBI for investigation of potential wrongdoing, according to Fox News.
Brennan “violated the public’s trust and should be held accountable for it,” one official told Fox News without going into detail on what in particular Brennan is being investigated for.
