On July 8, Fox “News” first reported a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) probe into former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey.
The date the investigation itself began is unknown, as is whether or not it proceeded beyond the preliminary stage. However, the root of the investigation comes from a publicly available review by CIA Director John Ratcliffe, published on June 26, which vaguely claims that the intelligence community finding that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin sought to interfere with the 2016 Presidential election on behalf of Trump, was tainted due to a “politically charged” environment fostered by Brennan and Comey.
The report lied about Brennan’s use of information from the Steele Dossier, named after the British intelligence officer who wrote it, Christopher Steele, which found active cooperation between Russia and Trump campaign officials:
Despite these objections [from other CIA officers], Brennan
CIA
showed a preference for narrative consistency
over analytical soundness. 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. Brennan
ultimately formalized his position in writing,
stating that “my bottomline is that I believe
that the information warrants inclusion in the
report.”
In reality, Brennan himself opposed including information from the Steele Dossier to former President Barack Obama. It is worth noting, contrarily, that objections to the Steele Dossier may have been politically-induced in favor of Trump.
The review does not dispute the intelligence community assessment that Putin preferred Trump as President over Hillary Clinton. The review takes issue with the means by which the intelligence community reached that conclusion. However, that does not answer the question of why Comey and Brennan are being investigated. At the time of this writing, there is no evidence of criminal activity against either men.
