Former CIA Director John Brennan claims he’s “clueless” as to why the FBI would open a criminal probe against him and says he’s had “no contact” with federal authorities related to an investigation.
“Quite frankly, I don’t know what is true, you know,” Brennan told MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace Wednesday in his first public remarks since reports emerged that he’s under investigation for potential criminal conduct related to the 2016 Trump-Russia collusion probe.
“If it was a referral, if there is an investigation, presumably if there is an investigation, people will be questioned,” the former spy chief said. “I would be questioned about it, but again, I’ve had no contact from them.”
Brennan, who led the CIA under former President Barack Obama, is believed to be under investigation for lying to Congress about the Steele dossier, which contained salacious allegations tying President Trump to Russia.
The Post’s Miranda Devine reported last week that Brennan may have set himself up to face perjury charges after a new email surfaced in a CIA “lessons-learned review” of the agency’s assessment that Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election to help President Trump.
The email indicated that Brennan insisted that the discredited Steele dossier be included, despite strong pushback from the CIA’s two most senior Russia experts.
Brennan, however, claimed during congressional testimony in May 2017 that the Steele dossier “wasn’t part of the corpus of intelligence information that we had,” and six years later, he testified to the House Judiciary Committee that the CIA was “very much opposed to having any reference or inclusion of the Steele dossier” in the Trump-Russia report.
“I testified in front of many, many congressional committees in the House and the Senate over the years, and I continue to explain exactly what we did during this process,” Brennan told Wallace. “Why we tried to make sure we stayed true to our intelligence responsibilities and that we were not going to do anything at all to try to interfere in that election.”
Brennan described the 2016 Trump probe as a “challenging time” and argued that it “showed the best of what the intelligence community and what the CIA is made of.”
“So again, I am clueless about what it is exactly that they may be investigating me for,” he added.
Brennan, a frequent Trump critic, said it was “very surprising” that an investigation would be launched now after he was previously questioned by former special counsel John Durham, as part of his probe into the origins of the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation, arguing, “I don’t think there’s any new evidence that’s been uncovered at all.”
A source told The Post that former FBI Director James Comey is also under investigation in connection with the Trump-Russia probe.
“We do not comment on ongoing investigations,” a Justice Department spokesperson said when asked about the Brennan and Comey probes.
