The Trump administration has put two repeated targets of President Donald Trump under criminal investigation, although details of what exactly they are being investigated for or how far the Justice Department intends on taking the probes are unclear.
Former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey — the latter of whom Trump fired during his first term in office — are facing criminal investigations, according to a statement that a Justice Department spokesperson provided to reporters.
The statement followed a Fox News article from Tuesday evening reporting on the existence of the investigations. After referencing Comey and Brennan, the spokesperson said the Justice Department does “not comment on ongoing investigations.”
A lawyer for Comey had no immediate comment. Brennan, who is a paid contributor to NBC News and MSNBC, said he has not been contacted by DOJ or the CIA about the reported investigation. The FBI declined to comment.
The Fox News story was published as both FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi are facing significant blowback from conservative media and influencers over their handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation. This week, the Justice Department and FBI put out a memo restating what prior investigations had already found: That Epstein had killed himself, and that there was no incriminating evidence against uncharged third parties.
Patel had previously engaged with conspiracy theories about Epstein before he joined the government, while Bondi’s previous statement that an Epstein list was sitting on her desk fueled more speculation on the right. Bondi later said she was speaking about documents related to Epstein, not an actual list.
In the Brennan matter, a source briefed on the matter said CIA Director John Ratcliffe made a criminal referral of Brennan to the Justice Department. Exactly what prompted the Comey investigation is unclear.
Ratcliffe last week released an internal CIA review that criticized Brennan’s handling of a 2017 intelligence assessment concluding that Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to help Trump defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Any conduct that took place during the 2016 campaign or even most of Trump’s first term is now outside the typical five-year statute of limitations for federal crimes. The Fox News story mentions testimony that Brennan gave to the House Judiciary Committee in May 2023 about the so-called “Steele Dossier” that was an issue during the 2016 campaign. It cites no specific conduct from Comey during the past five years.
A special counsel appointed by then-Attorney General William Barr spent years investigating how the 2017 intelligence assessment was put together, requiring many CIA officials to hire lawyers. That special counsel, John Durham, also used a grand jury to scrutinize the actions of Brennan, Comey and many who worked for them over how the FBI and CIA handled investigations into Russia’s effort to interfere in the 2016 election. But Durham did not charge the two former leaders or accuse them of wrongdoing. His sole charge against a public official came against a low-level FBI lawyer who lied on a warrant application.
The Trump administration has been taking action against people involved in prior investigations of him and his supporters. The Justice Department has a “Weaponization Working Group” that is examining those investigations, and many individuals who worked on them who were still in the department have been fired. And on his first day in office, Trump pardoned his supporters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Michael Kosnar contributed.