WASHINGTON — The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is conducting interviews with both current and former employees of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as part of an investigation into John Brennan, the former CIA director. This inquiry focuses on his management of a 2016 investigation into alleged collusion between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia, sources informed The Post.
Agents from the FBI’s Miami field office recently held discussions with CIA personnel at the agency’s headquarters in McLean, Virginia. These interviews are anticipated to continue over the coming weeks, according to sources within the Justice Department.
Among those interviewed are CIA staff members who contributed to a contentious intelligence report orchestrated under Brennan’s leadership. This report concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election with the aim of aiding Trump’s campaign, the sources further revealed. The initial news of these meetings was reported by Reuters.
The investigation is being spearheaded by South Florida U.S. Attorney Jason Reding Quiñones. His comprehensive probe targets Brennan and other officials from the Obama administration who played roles in the 2017 intelligence assessment, in addition to examining the alleged collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia.
Last year, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) submitted criminal referrals to the Department of Justice concerning Brennan’s involvement in the investigation.
Gabbard also disclosed over 100 internal government documents indicating that former President Obama ordered the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment. This directive came despite assurances from national security officials that cyberattacks by Russia and other foreign entities did not alter the outcome of the presidential race between Trump and Hillary Clinton.
The criminal referrals cited evidence that Brennan falsely testified to Congress in 2023 that the CIA was “very much opposed” to using information from a now-discredited dossier, authored by ex-MI6 spy Christopher Steele, in the assessment.
In fact,veteran CIA officials warned Brennan about the risks of releasing a “substandard” intelligence product, but Brennan pushed back in a December 2016 email exchange to the agency’s deputy director of analysis, saying of the Steele dossier: “I believe that the information warrants inclusion.”
Asked about the dossier’s failure to meet “basic tradecraft standards,” a House Intelligence Committee investigation found, Brennan responded, “Yes, but doesn’t it ring true?”
The ex-CIA director told the House Judiciary Committee on May 11, 2023, that “the CIA was very much opposed to having any reference or inclusion of the Steele dossier in the Intelligence Community Assessment.”
That statement falls within the five-year statute of limitations should prosecutors charge Brennan with lying to Congress while under oath.
The Obama-ordered ICA determined that “Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability” and that Putin had a “clear preference for President-elect Trump.”
A 2020 House Intelligence Committee report contradicted this, noting that Putin’s “principal motivations in these operations were to undermine faith in the US democratic process.”
The Russian president also expected Clinton to win in 2016 and held back on “some compromising material for post-election use against the expected Clinton administration,” the House report stated.
President Trump has railed against Brennan, former FBI Director James Comey, ex-DNI James Clapper and others for perpetrating a “hoax” on the American people by pushing the 2017 intelligence assessment.
As of July 2025, Brennan claimed that the FBI hadn’t contacted him or his lawyers about the investigation.
His defense lawyers, in a December letter to South Florida US District Chief Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga, confirmed that Brennan was a target of a probe into “the circumstances surrounding the production of the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment about Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election in the United States.”
Brennan’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The FBI declined to comment. Reps for the DOJ did not respond to a request for comment.
