A latest CIA memo criticized intelligence leaders for dashing the 2016 Russia report.
Former CIA Director John Brennan stated on July 9 that he has not been contacted by the Division of Justice (DOJ), FBI, or the CIA following studies that he and former FBI Director James Comey are underneath investigation.
Brennan stated in an interview with MSNBC that he has no data of any investigations however branded them as 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 stated. “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 a number of media shops that Brennan and Comey are being investigated however declined to supply additional particulars.
The Epoch Occasions contacted the DOJ and FBI for remark. The FBI declined to remark. The DOJ didn’t reply by publication time.
Brennan made the feedback after Fox Information, citing unnamed sources, reported on July 8 that Brennan and Comey have been being investigated for alleged wrongdoing throughout probes into whether or not Russia sought to assist then-presidential candidate Donald Trump win the 2016 presidential election over his challenger from the Democratic Occasion, 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 by means of a web-based disinformation marketing campaign.
That discovering was supported by a bipartisan report launched in August 2018 by the Senate Intelligence Committee, whose appearing chairman was Marco Rubio, now Trump’s secretary of state.
Nonetheless, the report didn’t discover any proof of coordination between Russia and Trump’s marketing campaign.
Brennan informed MSNBC that he was happy with the work the CIA did in placing collectively the intelligence evaluation.
“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 stated, including that the evaluation had been “comprehensive and exhaustive.”
Brennan’s and Comey’s roles in dealing with the intelligence neighborhood’s report on the Russia collusion allegations have been investigated throughout Trump’s first time period by particular counsel John Durham, who didn’t cost both with prison wrongdoing.
The most recent probe of Brennan and Comey comes after a CIA memo, dated June 25 and launched on July 2 by Director John Ratcliffe, stated it “does not dispute the quality and credibility” of the extremely labeled CIA report that the evaluation’s authors relied on to conclude that Putin sought to sway the 2016 election.
The CIA states, citing an intelligence neighborhood evaluation, that “high confidence generally indicates that judgments are based on high-quality information from multiple sources.”
Nonetheless, the memo criticized intelligence leaders for dashing the 2016 Russia report and the intelligence neighborhood for counting on a restricted supply base to precise with “high confidence” that Putin “aspired” to assist Trump win the 2016 election.
Trump has repeatedly rejected the Russian-collusion narrative.
Talking to reporters on the White Home on July 9, Trump stated he knew nothing concerning the probes of Brennan and Comey apart from what he learn that day.“Whatever happens, happens,” the president stated.
Brennan and Comey didn’t reply to requests for remark.
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