Things are not looking good for James Comey and John Brennan, with DOJ sources confirming that a criminal investigation is underway focusing on their attempts to portray Trump as having colluded with Russia, which a new FBI report ruled to be a “conspiracy” that was politically motivated.
For context, on July 8, 2025, Fox News reported that sources from the Department of Justice had confirmed that former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey are under criminal investigation for the Trump-Russia probe. Moreover, the unnamed DOJ sources said that current CIA Director John Ratcliffe had referred evidence of wrongdoing by Comey and Brennan to FBI Director Kash Patel.
Furthermore, the news of the criminal investigation came shortly after CIA Director John Ratcliffe announced on X on July 2, 2025, that he had been entrusted with helping to “end weaponization of US intelligence” by President Trump, going on to explain that his agency had conducted a thorough review of the Trump-Russia probe, determining that their 2016 assessment of President Trump “was conducted through an atypical & corrupt process under the politically charged environments of former Dir. Brennan & former FBI Dir. Comey.”
Continuing, the director said that he was “committed to ensuring that our analysts have the ability to deliver unvarnished assessments that are free from political influence,” referring to a new report that the CIA described as a “lessons-learned review of the procedures and tradecraft” used by former Director Brennan and former Director Comey to incriminate President Trump.
Moreover, in the aforementioned review of the Trump-Russia probe, the CIA concluded that the “Steele Dossier,” an explicitly anti-Trump document included in Comey and Ratcliffe’s assessment, was highly politicized and rife with issues. The agency explained, “When confronted with specific flaws in the Dossier by the two mission center leaders—one with extensive operational experience and the other with a strong analytic background—he appeared more swayed by the Dossier’s general conformity with existing theories than by legitimate tradecraft concerns.”
In addition, the CIA argued that the review of Russia’s potential involvement in the 2016 election contained “multiple procedural anomalies” that compromised its reliability, including “a highly compressed production timeline, stringent compartmentation, and excessive involvement of agency heads.”
Moreover, the agency said that these issues led to “departures from standard practices in the drafting, coordination, and reviewing of the ICA,” referring to the Intelligence Community Assessment — the official name for the report, which was titled, “Russia’s Influence Campaign
Targeting the 2016 US Presidential Election,” and was released on December 30, 2016.
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Responding to the new CIA report in a subsequent X post, Director Ratcliffe said that the original 2016 ICA report was clearly corrupt, saying, “All the world can now see the truth: Brennan, Clapper, and Comey manipulated intelligence and silenced career professionals — all to get Trump.” He added, “Thank you to the career @CIA officers who conducted this review and exposed the facts.”
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