John Brennan, the disgraced former CIA Director under Obama, may soon face perjury charges. A newly uncovered email from a blistering internal review by CIA professionals blows the lid off Brennan’s dubious actions regarding the agency’s 2016 Trump-Russia collusion assessment, raising serious questions about his integrity and accountability.
Brennan is now under intense scrutiny for the glaring discrepancies between his sworn testimony to Congress and his written directives to his staff regarding the controversial Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) commissioned by Barack Obama in December 2016. This report falsely claimed that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to aid Donald Trump.
The recent review, recently declassified, reveals that Brennan insisted on including the discredited Steele Dossier, despite fierce opposition from the CIA’s top Russia experts, who clearly warned that it failed to meet even the most basic standards of credibility.
Brennan was warned by then Deputy Director for Analysis David Cohen that including the dossier in any form would seriously jeopardize “the credibility of the entire paper.” Yet, Brennan pushed forward, asserting, “my bottom line is that I believe the information warrants inclusion in the report.”
The Steele Dossier, a sleazy opposition research document created by British spy Christopher Steele and funded by the Clinton campaign, was riddled with falsehoods. Among its absurd claims was the ludicrous assertion that Trump, a known germaphobe, had engaged in scandalous acts involving prostitutes in Moscow. The 2023 special counsel Durham report confirmed that the FBI could not substantiate any allegations in the dossier.
The CIA review further indicated that, when confronted with the dossier’s specific flaws, Brennan seemed more influenced by its alignment with existing narratives than by legitimate analytical concerns. His decision to include the dossier ran directly counter to fundamental principles of intelligence analysis and severely undermined the report’s credibility.
The findings revealed that references to the dossier were not only included in an annex but also became a central component of the ICA, thereby passing off unverified claims as credible evidence. This ultimately compromised the integrity of the assessment and fueled the baseless Mueller investigation that hampered Trump’s presidency.
Brennan’s determination to push the dossier highlights a glaring political agenda, as he sought to legitimize this vile smear campaign, which had been circulating among Democratic leaders and the press throughout the 2016 election cycle.
Additionally, former FBI Director James Comey played an instrumental role in pressuring the inclusion of the dossier in the ICA, making it clear that the FBI’s cooperation hinged on its presence in the report. This blatant politicization of the intelligence process raises urgent questions about accountability within our federal agencies.
Despite this damning evidence, Brennan has continued to deny the dossier’s significance in his congressional testimony under oath in 2017, where he insisted it “wasn’t part of the corpus of intelligence information.” Such claims can no longer be taken at face value.
In truth, the Steele Dossier was an integral part of the ICA, and its inclusion contributed to the very narrative that sought to delegitimize Trump’s election victory. Brennan now faces the consequences of his actions, and it’s time for accountability to take precedence over political gamesmanship.
