Repeat after me, Democrats: No one is above the law. No one is above the law. No one is above the law. And that includes high-ranking allies who lied to Congress and federal investigators to maintain a soft-coup project.
On Monday, we learned that investigators had begun a probe of former CIA Director John Brennan for false testimony before Congress regarding the origins of the Russia-collusion hoax. Last night, another name got added to the list, and this time it’s clear where the investigation is taking place. From Reuters:
The FBI has launched criminal probes into former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey, Fox News Digital reported on Tuesday, citing sources.
The probes are over alleged wrongdoing related to past government investigations about claims of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections in which President Donald Trump defeated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the news report said.
The Fox News report answers one important question. On Monday, the catalyst for the criminal probe appeared to be Brennan’s testimony to a House committee in 2017. The statutes regarding perjury and false testimony before Congress have a five-year statutory limitation, which would make prosecution impossible. However, Fox notes that Brennan allegedly lied again to Congress in 2023 when reiterating his earlier testimony, and may have lied to John Durham’s investigators as well:
The dossier — an anti-Trump document filled with unverified and wholly inaccurate claims that was commissioned by Fusion GPS and paid for by Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the DNC — has been widely discredited. Last week’s review marks the first time career CIA officials have acknowledged politicization of the process by which the ICA was written, particularly by Obama-era political appointees.
Records declassified as part of that review further revealed that Brennan did, in fact, push for the dossier to be included in the 2017 ICA.
Brennan testified to the House Judiciary Committee in May 2023, however, that he did not believe the dossier should be included in that intelligence product.
That certainly fits within the five-year statute of limitations. However, as Hans Mahncke points out at The Federalist, any charges relating to Brennan’s interviews with the Durham special counsel probe would have to be filed within the next few weeks. Investigators may be looking at the transcripts of those interviews now:
The final Durham report is vague on Brennan and mentions him only 19 times, compared to hundreds of mentions for Christopher Steele. In fact, it includes only two direct quotes from Brennan’s interview with Durham, the full transcript of which remains concealed to this day. One is that Mueller “found no conspiracy,” which is irrelevant in terms of perjury. The other is Brennan’s statement that “[t]here was no effort at the CIA to restrict information because it was potentially embarrassing for Hillary Clinton…. Obama just wanted the right people involved.” That claim is false but vague enough to be legally defensible, making it difficult to charge.
The real problem is that we simply don’t know what else Brennan told Durham. To bring perjury charges, someone with deep knowledge of the Russiagate saga would need to carefully analyze the full interview, identify contradictions with established facts, and build a prosecutable case. Given the dismal track record of accountability so far, it’s hard to believe that kind of detailed work has been done. But if it has, it would need to result in charges very soon. Brennan’s interview with Durham took place on August 21, 2020, meaning the clock runs out in just over six weeks.
If Brennan lied to those investigators about his use of the Steele Dossier, that is a violation of 18 USC 1001. That is a mechanism used by federal prosecutors to pressure targets into cooperating, but they often prosecute it as well, and sometimes for petty reasons of retribution. For instance, people have the impression that Martha Stewart went to federal prison for five months for insider trading, but she was never tried for that crime. She only got tried for violating 18 USC 1001 for lying to FBI agents investigating an insider-trading allegation.
And guess who prosecuted Martha Stewart? James Comey, who may end up on the wrong end of his own prosecutorial petard. However, the Fox News Digital exclusive is light on explanations for how Comey may be targeted in the Russia-collusion probe. Their sources did suggest that the DoJ may be looking at this as a “conspiracy,” which would be very bad news for any target of an investigation. It also suggests that there may be others who could be charged in such an investigation besides Brennan and Comey … and that could go all the way to the top of the Obama administration as composed in the summer and fall of 2016.
Even that has its statute of limitations, though. Anyone charged in such a conspiracy would have to have committed an overt criminal act within the last five years in furtherance of the conspiracy or to keep it covered up. Brennan may have done that with Durham and with his House testimony in 2023; did Comey testify before Congress or under oath in the matter over the last five years? It’s almost certain that no one else in that loop has had to commit such an act, except perhaps James Clapper, whose track record on false statements speaks for itself anyway. Even if no one else can get charged in this alleged conspiracy, though, the stink will stick forever to its potential participants — particularly Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the latter of whom authored it with the Steele Dossier dirty trick.
So, stay tuned, and pass the popcorn. Accountability may be coming, and perhaps right soon for Brennan.
