Brennan Sues Trump Admin to Preserve DOJ Records in Russia Probe

Former CIA Director John Brennan filed a lawsuit Wednesday in federal court in Washington against the Trump administration, seeking a court order to preserve Justice Department records tied to the ongoing federal investigation into his role in the 2016 election intelligence assessment on Russian interference.

The lawsuit does not ask the court to halt the investigation. Instead, Brennan's legal team wants an order requiring the Justice Department to keep emails, text messages, internal memos, calendar entries, and other communications related to the probes. The argument: if Brennan is later indicted, those records could show the prosecution was politically motivated.

Federal prosecutors in Miami are investigating whether Brennan made false statements to Congress in 2023 about the intelligence community's assessment that Russia sought to boost Donald Trump's 2016 campaign. The inquiry is part of a broader Justice Department investigation into whether former intelligence and law enforcement officials conspired to undermine Trump during and after the Russia probe.

Trump has repeatedly called the Russia investigation a "Russia Hoax" and pushed for criminal investigations into the officials involved. Brennan has denied wrongdoing and says the investigations are politically driven.

"Given these strong indicia of vindictiveness, Director Brennan expects that he will forcefully challenge any eventual indictment as the product of an unconstitutionally vindictive and selective prosecution," the lawsuit states.

The complaint also seeks preservation of communications involving Trump, White House officials, and Justice Department personnel connected to the investigations. Brennan's lawyers argue that important government communications could disappear because of alleged failures to comply with federal record-keeping requirements and the administration's use of encrypted messaging platforms such as Signal.

"Given the government's questionable recent history with respect to its record preservation and other legal obligations... Director Brennan has a well-founded concern that those records and communications will not be preserved until such time as the court can review them for evidence of unconstitutional vindictiveness," the lawyers wrote.

According to the lawsuit, internal communications could reveal whether prosecutors were acting independently or responding to political pressure. "A careful examination of the prosecutors' emails, texts, instant messages, internal memoranda and the like would enable a court to determine whether their decisions were based on legitimate law enforcement concerns or on a desire to selectively and/or vindictively prosecute Director Brennan," the complaint says.

Brennan's legal team argues that Trump has publicly criticized him more than 100 times since 2017 and has repeatedly urged the Justice Department to investigate him, which they say supports claims of selective prosecution. The lawsuit alleges Brennan is being targeted because of Trump's "obsession with punishing him for his lawful conduct as CIA Director and for his constitutionally protected criticism of the President and the President's policies."

It adds: "That is the reason he is being singled out for investigation of concocted theories of criminal activity, and that will be the dominant reason for any criminal charges resulting from that investigation."

The Justice Department declined to confirm whether Brennan is under investigation but rejected his allegations. "While we cannot comment on the existence, or lack thereof, of an investigation, it is certainly rich that John Brennan is accusing anyone of a 'retribution campaign,'" Justice Department spokeswoman Emily Covington said.

The complaint names Trump along with several senior administration officials, including acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, FBI Director Kash Patel, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Southern District of Florida U.S. Attorney Jason Reding Quiñones, and Justice Department special counsel Joe diGenova.