In a bombshell move, the Trump administration has announced that the FBI has opened criminal investigations into former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey for potential wrongdoing related to the Trump-Russia probe.
The investigation centers around allegations that Comey and Brennan made false statements to Congress, Justice Department sources told Fox News.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe referred evidence of Brennan’s wrongdoing to FBI Director Kash Patel for potential prosecution, according to the DOJ sources. The criminal investigation into Brennan was announced Monday, though sources declined to provide further details about whether the probe extends beyond his alleged false statements to Congress.
Two sources described the FBI’s view of Brennan and Comey’s testimony under oath during the Trump-Russia investigation as a “conspiracy,” which could open up a wide range of potential criminal charges for the Justice Department.
The investigations stem from a recently declassified CIA review of the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment that falsely claimed Russia coordinated with Donald Trump’s campaign in the 2016 presidential election.
The review found the ICA creation process was rushed with “procedural anomalies” and that officials under then-President Barack Obama didn’t follow normal intelligence standards.
“The decision by agency heads to include the Steele Dossier in the ICA ran counter to fundamental tradecraft principles and ultimately undermined the credibility of a key judgment,” the review found.
Brennan emerged as a central figure in the controversy after declassified records revealed he personally pushed for the inclusion of the discredited Steele dossier in the controversial report, despite strong objections from the CIA’s two most senior Russia experts who said it “did not meet even the most basic tradecraft standards.”
The Steele dossier was commissioned by opposition research firm Fusion GPS and funded by Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee, who paid more than $1 million to the Perkins Coie law firm for the research. Fusion GPS hired former British spy Christopher Steele to compile the document, which contained unverified and largely inaccurate claims about Trump’s connections to Russia.
These claims were later used as a political tool against Trump’s presidential campaign.
A declassified email sent to Brennan by the former deputy CIA director in December 2016 warned that including the dossier in any capacity jeopardized “the credibility of the entire paper.”
“Despite these objections, Brennan showed a preference for narrative consistency over analytical soundness,” the CIA review states. “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.”
The review added that “Brennan ultimately formalized his position in writing, stating that ‘my bottomline is that I believe that the information warrants inclusion in the report.'”
However, Brennan’s testimony — which he gave under oath to Congress — directly contradicted this documented position. In May 2023, he testified before the House Judiciary Committee that he opposed including the dossier in the intelligence assessment.
“The CIA was very much opposed to having any reference or inclusion of the Steele dossier in the Intelligence Community Assessment,” Brennan reportedly told the committee during a closed-door session. “And so they sent over a copy of the dossier to say that this was going to be separate from the rest of that assessment.”
On Wednesday, reports say the FBI believes Comey also played a key role in pushing for the dossier’s inclusion.
The CIA review found that “FBI leadership made it clear that their participation in the [intelligence community assessment] hinged on the Dossier’s inclusion and, over the next few days, repeatedly pushed to weave references to it throughout the main body of the ICA.”
The review found that Brennan, Comey, and then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper were “excessively involved” in the drafting of the assessment through a “chaotic,” “atypical” and “markedly unconventional” process that was rushed to completion.
“The rushed timeline to publish both classified and unclassified versions before the presidential transition raised questions about a potential political motive behind the White House tasking and timeline,” the review stated.
Ratcliffe, who has long criticized Brennan’s politicization of intelligence, told The New York Post last week: “This was Obama, Comey, Clapper and Brennan deciding ‘We’re going to screw Trump.'”
The Steele dossier helped serve as the basis for controversial Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants obtained against former Trump campaign aide Carter Page, despite the FBI lacking specific information to corroborate the allegations.
A Justice Department Inspector General review found “significant inaccuracies and omissions” in the FISA warrants, while Special Counsel John Durham concluded that the FBI “failed to act” on a “clear warning sign” that the bureau was being targeted by a Clinton-led effort to “manipulate or influence the law enforcement process for political purposes.”
“The … facts reflect a rather startling and inexplicable failure to adequately consider and incorporate the Clinton Plan intelligence into the FBI’s investigative decision-making in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation,” Durham concluded.
Additionally, Brennan had allegedly briefed then-President Barack Obama on July 28, 2016, regarding a plan from one of Clinton’s campaign foreign policy advisors “to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service.”
After nearly two years of investigation, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe yielded no evidence of criminal conspiracy or coordination between the Trump campaign and Russian officials during the 2016 election.