By Andrew Goudsward and Jana Winter
WASHINGTON, April 15 (Reuters) - The FBI plans to question roughly a half-dozen witnesses in its criminal inquiry into ex-CIA Director John Brennan over a U.S. intelligence assessment that found Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump, said two people familiar with the investigation.
The interviews, which have not been previously reported and are expected to include former intelligence officials involved in the 2017 assessment, will delve into
the origins of the Trump-Russia inquiry — an issue Trump has long urged that prosecutors pursue, the two sources said.
The probe represents a far-reaching effort by Trump’s Justice Department to revisit an investigation whose core conclusions were later affirmed by the Justice Department, a bipartisan Senate committee and a CIA review, fueling critics’ concerns that the Trump administration is using prosecutorial power to target perceived adversaries and re-litigate a central episode of Trump’s first term.
Reuters could not determine the specific identities of the people set to be interviewed over the next several weeks. Investigators have already conducted a small number of witness interviews, sources said.
The probe is being run by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami and has been under way for months. The sources said it appears to be focusing on congressional testimony Brennan gave in 2023 about the crafting of the assessment.
Brennan was told by prosecutors that he is a target of the investigation, his attorney disclosed in a letter in December.
A Trump ally, Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, referred Brennan to the DOJ in October, alleging the former CIA director had made false statements to the House Judiciary Committee during the 2023 testimony.
Brennan, a cable news analyst and longtime critic of Trump, has condemned reported investigations into him as politically biased and a misuse of the legal system. His lawyer, in the December letter to the chief District Court judge in Miami, said there was no "legally justifiable basis" for the investigation and accused prosecutors of using improper tactics.
Brennan's attorney declined to comment.
A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment. The FBI did not respond to a request for comment.
A LONG-RUNNING DISPUTE
Todd Blanche, who assumed the job of acting attorney general this month when he took over the Justice Department from Pam Bondi, helped oversee the investigation as her top deputy and convened meetings with DOJ leaders to review its progress in recent weeks, two law enforcement officials told Reuters.
Trump fired Bondi this month amid frustration with the pace and outcome of investigations he demanded.
The forthcoming witness interviews were scheduled before Bondi's ouster on April 2 and do not appear to be a direct reaction to her dismissal, according to the two other sources with knowledge of the probe.
The intelligence assessment, issued in January 2017 days before Trump’s first inauguration, concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to boost the Republican Trump’s candidacy and denigrate his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.
Trump has long railed against past investigations into his ties to Moscow as a "hoax" and a politically motivated effort to undermine his first term, which ran from 2017 to 2021.
Prosecutors have so far sent at least two batches of subpoenas seeking information about the crafting of the 2017 assessment from a range of former intelligence and law enforcement officials.
A prosecution of Brennan based in southern Florida could face legal challenges given that Brennan's 2023 testimony took place before a House committee in Washington, not in Florida. Judges and grand juries in Washington have been resistant to previous efforts to investigate and prosecute Trump's targets.
The referral from Jordan, the Republican chair of the House Judiciary Committee, alleged Brennan lied to the panel in discussing the so-called Steele dossier, a report by a former British intelligence officer on purported ties between Trump and Russia. The dossier, which was funded by Trump’s political opponents and included unverified rumors, has been the focus of claims by Trump and his allies of political bias in the Russia probe.
Brennan has repeatedly said the CIA opposed including the dossier in the intelligence assessment. A summary of its findings was attached to a classified version of the report.
(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward and Jana Winter; Editing by Michael Learmonth and Howard Goller)
