A recent CIA memo criticized intelligence leaders for rushing the 2016 Russia report.
Former CIA Director John Brennan said on July 9 that he has not been contacted by the Department of Justice (DOJ), FBI, or the CIA following reports that he and former FBI Director James Comey are under investigation.
Brennan said in an interview with MSNBC that he has no knowledge of any investigations but branded them 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, which are not really supposed to happen if there is an investigation going on,” Brennan said. “I think this is unfortunately a very sad and tragic example of the continued politicization of the intelligence community, of the national security process.”
A DOJ spokesperson confirmed to multiple media outlets that Brennan and Comey are being investigated but declined to provide further details.
The Epoch Times contacted the DOJ and FBI for comment. The FBI declined to comment. The DOJ did not respond by publication time.
Brennan made the comments after Fox News, citing unnamed sources, reported on July 8 that Brennan and Comey were being investigated for alleged wrongdoing during probes into whether Russia sought to help then-presidential candidate Donald Trump win the 2016 presidential election over his challenger from the Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton.
Brennan headed the CIA when U.S. intelligence assessed with “high confidence” that Russian President Vladimir Putin had sought to sway the 2016 election vote in Trump’s favor through an online disinformation campaign.
That finding was supported by a bipartisan report released in August 2018 by the Senate Intelligence Committee, whose acting chairman was Marco Rubio, now Trump’s secretary of state.
The report did not find any evidence of a coordinated scheme between Russia and Trump’s campaign.
Brennan told MSNBC that he was proud of the work the CIA did in putting together the intelligence assessment.
“We went to great lengths to protect the integrity of the process, the integrity and sensitivity of the intelligence involved and to protect the identities of the individuals that may have been implicated in this intelligence, including from the Trump administration,” he said, adding that the assessment had been “comprehensive and exhaustive.”
Brennan and Comey’s roles in handling the intelligence community’s report on the Russia collusion allegations were investigated during Trump’s first term by Special Counsel John Durham, who did not charge either with criminal wrongdoing.
The latest probe of Brennan and Comey comes after a CIA memo, dated June 25 and released July 2 by Director John Ratcliffe, said it “does not dispute the quality and credibility” of the highly classified CIA report that the assessment’s authors relied on to conclude that Putin sought to sway the 2016 election.
The CIA states, citing an intelligence community assessment, that “high confidence generally indicates that judgments are based on high-quality information from multiple sources.”
However, the memo criticized intelligence leaders for rushing the 2016 Russia report and the intelligence community for relying on a limited source base to express with “high confidence” that Putin “aspired” to help Trump win the 2016 election.
Trump has repeatedly rejected the Russian-collusion narrative.
Speaking to reporters at the White House on July 9, Trump said he knew nothing about the probes of Brennan and Comey “other than what I read today.”“Whatever happens, happens,” the president said.
