Ex-CIA chief John Brennan referred for criminal prosecution over ‘Russiagate,’ is latest Trump foe in DOJ crosshairs

After a wave of indictments against Donald Trump’s enemies, the president’s allies in Congress are now pushing the Department of Justice to file criminal charges against Barack Obama’s former CIA director John Brennan, who they have accused of lying to Congress.

In a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, House Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan claimed Brennan “knowingly made false statements” to the panel during an interview in May 2023.

The allegations against Brennan, who led the nation’s intelligence agency during a federal investigation into allegations of Russian interference in U.S. elections in 2016, center around the so-called Steele dossier, a series of largely directed documents compiled by a former British intelligence officer who accused the president and his allies of conspiring with the Kremlin.

Christopher Steele handed his memo to the FBI in 2016, and a summary of allegations were included in an intelligence report ordered by the Obama administration following Trump’s election.

“Brennan’s assertion that the CIA was not ‘involved at all’ with the Steele dossier cannot be reconciled with the facts,” Jordan wrote Tuesday.

His testimony “was a brazen attempt to knowingly and willfully testify falsely and fictitiously to material facts,” the Ohio Republican wrote.

Brennan, who emerged as a high-profile Trump critic after leaving the administration, has long been a target of the president, who has sought political retribution against Democratic figures and others tied to the federal probe into his 2016 campaign.

Criminal referrals from Congress typically carry little, if any, weight in the hands of federal prosecutors, particularly involving issues where evidence at the center of a potential case have been publicly available for years.

But the Justice Department now appears to be inextricable from the president’s personal campaign against his perceived enemies, after publicly pressuring Bondi to swiftly prosecute former FBI director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, who were indicted in rapid succession following Trump’s commands.

This is a developing story