Former CIA Director John Brennan is reportedly under scrutiny by U.S. Attorney John Durham in his probe into the origins of the FBI Russia investigation, an investigation which was marked by multiple violations of the due process rights of American citizens.
The New York Times has reported that Durham — appointed by Attorney General William Barr to investigate the origins of the entire “Russia collusion” narrative — has “requested Mr. Brennan’s email, call logs and other documents from the C.I.A., according to a person briefed on his inquiry. He wants to what Mr. Brennan told other officials, including the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey, about his and the C.I.A.’s views of a notorious dossier of assertions about Russia and Trump associates.”
In October, Durham’s investigation had evolved from a mere administrative review into a full criminal investigation after the uncovering of some troubling evidence.
The investigation by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz concluded that the FBI was guilty of misconduct in its surveillance of the Trump presidential campaign in 2016. Horowitz found that the CIA had told the FBI not to rely on the infamous “Steele dossier,” as it was not credible.
But Brennan made statements during the period of the Russia investigation that are now being scrutinized for contradictions. Brennan publicly left the impression that intelligence agencies were uniform in their conclusions about possible Russian interference on behalf of candidate Donald Trump.
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Barr told Fox News on Wednesday of this week that Durham was looking beyond just possible wrongdoing within the FBI. Barr said that Durham was also examining the conduct of other agencies and even “private actors,” indicating the probe is quite broad. According to Barr, Durham is looking at the allegations that the FBI misled the FISA court multiple times in order to obtain warrants, and that he is looking at conduct both before and after the 2016 presidential election.
Barr took particular issue with some recent remarks by former FBI Director James Comey. “One of the things that I object to is the tack taken by Comey, which is to suggest that people who are criticizing or trying to get to the bottom of the misconduct are somehow attacking the FBI. I think that’s nonsense.”
Barr added, “We’re criticizing and concerned about misconduct by a few actors at the top of the F.B.I. and they should be criticized if they engaged in serious misconduct. That doesn’t mean that we are criticizing the F.B.I. and I think the tack of trying to wrap yourself in the institution and say gee, people who are criticizing the decisions I made are attacking the institution.”
In contrast, Barr noted, “People feel free to criticize me and I don’t say gee you’re attacking the honest men and women of the Department of Justice.”
Much of the strategy of those on the Left throughout the entire Russia collusion scandal, as a way to deflect any criticism away from the insinuations that President Trump conspired with the Russians, has been to make it sound as though one is being somehow unpatriotic if one challenges the motivation of anyone in any of America’s intelligence agencies.
But John Brennan’s motivations certainly need challenging.
Brennan and the leadership of the U.S. intelligence community released an assessment in January 2017 (the month that Trump took office) that the FBI, the CIA, and the NSA had concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin directed an effort to help Trump win the 2016 election over Democratic Party nominee Hillary Clinton.
In reality, there was disagreement on the assertion that Putin favored Trump over Clinton and whether the contents of the Steele dossier were reliable.
Yet, Brennan has been quite vocal during the entirety of the Trump presidency that Putin wanted a Trump victory, and has even suggested that Putin had some sort of leverage over Trump — although Brennan did not speculate as to what that leverage might be.
That John Brennan could have ever become the director of the CIA raises several questions in itself. In 1976, Brennan voted for the Communist Party candidate for president, Gus Hall. When one considers that the formation of the CIA would not have even obtained congressional and presidential approval in 1947 had it not been for the threat of the Soviet Union in the Cold War, one must ask what is the purpose of the CIA today? After all, the U.S. Communist Party, since its inception in 1919, was a mere branch of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union, including during the time in which Brennan cast his vote for Hall.
And communism, directed from Moscow, was responsible for millions of deaths in the 20th century.
Brennan’s explanation of why he voted for the Communist Party candidate is quite weak. Brennan told the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s annual conference in September 2016 that he supported the Communist Party candidate because it was his way of “signaling my unhappiness with the system, and the need for change.”
In other words, Brennan voted Communist because he was unhappy with the political system of the United States, and he wanted to see a change. A change to what? Since he voted for the Communist candidate, it is fair to conclude that he wanted America to become communist.
What is particularly alarming about all of this is that Brennan did not express any regret over voting for the Communist candidate, nor that he now rejected that totalitarian system. As such, it is not surprising that he used his position as the head of the CIA — appointed by President Barack Obama, who himself said in 2008 he wanted to fundamentally transform of America — to advance his own leftist political philosophy.
Thomas Sutton, a political science professor at Baldwin Wallace University, even tried to defend Brennan by saying he was just “a young idealistic student pursuing studies in politics who shared the concerns of many about the health of the U.S. political system.”
Perhaps Brennan’s desire to change that political system explains his willingness to put the country through what we have gone through the past three years. Hopefully, Durham’s probe will put a stop to what can only be described as an attempted coup d’état against our system of government — a coup effort in which John Brennan has been a principal leader.
Photo: AP Images
Steve Byas is a university instructor in history and government and author of the book, History’s Greatest Libels. He can be contacted at [email protected]
