CIA veteran questioned 8 hours over Russia probe
WASHINGTON — Former CIA Director John Brennan was told during eight hours of questioning Friday that he was not the target of any criminal inquiry as part of a Justice Department examination into the Russia investigation’s origins.
During the interview at CIA headquarters, Brennan was informed he was “only a witness to events that are under review,” his aide said. Brennan oversaw the agency’s inquiry into Russia’s campaign to intervene in the 2016 election.
John Durham, the U.S. attorney leading the Justice Department’s investigation, interviewed Brennan on a “wide range” of subjects, including the agency’s inquiry and the related intelligence report that the Obama administration made public in January 2017.
Democrats have expressed deep skepticism about the Justice Department investigation, suspicious that it will present a biased view of the FBI’s and CIA’s attempts in 2016 to investigate Russian interference.
During his interview with Durham, Brennan, who has been a senior national security analyst for NBC and MSNBC, joined in the criticism of the Justice Department.
“Brennan also told Mr. Durham that the repeated efforts of [President] Donald Trump and [Attorney General] William Barr to politicize Durham’s work have been appalling and have tarnished the independence and integrity of the Department of Justice, making it very difficult for Department of Justice professionals to carry out their responsibilities,” Brennan’s aide, Nick Shapiro, said Friday in a statement, which he echoed on Twitter.
Shapiro said some of Durham’s questions focused on the CIA’s work to prepare the report made public in 2017, known as the intelligence community assessment.
“Brennan questioned why the analytic tradecraft and the findings of the CIA are being scrutinized by the Department of Justice, especially since they have been validated by the [former special counsel Robert] Mueller Report as well as the bipartisan Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Review,” Shapiro tweeted.
Still, Brennan said Durham conducted the interview professionally, Shapiro said.
Since before Trump took office, he has bristled at accusations that he won the election with the help of the Russians. He and his allies have sought to question the origins of congressional investigations, the FBI’s inquiry and the work of Mueller. Trump has repeatedly called those efforts a witch hunt.
The news that Brennan is being treated as a witness suggests that any indictments by Durham are likely to be focused on the FBI or the Justice Department, rather than the CIA.
Durham has said he disagrees with some of the Justice Department’s inspector general report examining the Russia investigation. He told the department’s independent inspector general, Michael Horowitz, that he had questions about how the FBI case looking at the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russian officials was opened.
Horowitz found several incidents of wrongdoing by FBI agents, particularly surrounding the requests for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant on Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser.
And the inspector general investigation gave Durham’s inquiry its first conviction last week.
On Wednesday, a former FBI lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith, pleaded guilty to doctoring an email from the CIA that was used in preparations for asking a court to renew a wiretap.
Clinesmith was originally referred for criminal investigation by Horowitz.
He was charged by Durham.