John Brennan defends himself from federal Russiagate investigation as surveillance against James Comey is revealed

The two former top intelligence officials under investigation by the federal government were once again in the eye of the storm. Former CIA director John Brennan defended himself on national television against the federal investigation against him for his leading role in the creation and promotion of the controversial Russiagate. Meanwhile, the Secret Service generated controversy by secretly tracking and following former FBI Director James Comey and his wife.

Comey is also under investigation for the discredited 2016 Russian election interference case.

Brennan defends himself as he faces perjury charges.

"So, again, this is something that I think is made up out of, unfortunately, a whole cloth, and they're just trying to see what, you know, they're able to get to stick to the media wall and how some of these outlets are now taking this," is how Brennan, who also attacked current CIA director John Ratcliffe for his recent statements about Brennan's ties to Russiagate, defended himself this afternoon.

"He's making these allegations that just have no evidentiary basis whatsoever. And, again, I think it's beneath the dignity of a CIA director to do things like that," the former agency chief charged.

Brennan's remarks follow the release of an internal CIA review by Ratcliffe. In that document, Brennan was publicly exposed, even at risk of facing charges of alleged false testimony to Congress.

The report, declassified last week, concludes that Brennan pushed for the inclusion of the discredited Steele dossier in the 2016 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA), despite opposition from career officials at the agency.

"My bottomline is that I believe that the information warrants inclusion in the report," Brennan wrote in an internal memo, as recorded on page 5 of the document disclosed by Ratcliffe.

That page reads:

"Despite these objections, Brennan showed a preference for narrative consistency over analytical soundness. 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."

The document directly contradicts Brennan's closed-door testimony to Congress, where he claimed he did not promote the dossier's inclusion. It also goes in the opposite direction of statements he gave in 2017 to The Wall Street Journal, where he claimed not to have read the dossier, which he considered unreliable from the outset.

The Steele dossier, which was funded by Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee in 2016, contained false claims, misinformation, and, according to multiple reviews, a politically motivated tone against Donald Trump.

Ratcliffe called the process behind the ICA "atypical and corrupt" and noted that both Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey manipulated intelligence and silenced career professionals to attack the Republican president.

Comey, followed by Secret Service after posting on networks.

While Brennan defends himself against the accusations against him, Comey, the other senior official under investigation, was the protagonist of another episode that amplifies the scandal: the Secret Service tracked him and his wife in May, after the former FBI director posted an image on Instagram with seashells that formed the message "86 47."

At the time, many Trump allies interpreted the post as a violent innuendo: the "86" was seen as an informal code for "delete" and "47" as an allusion to Trump, who is the 47th U.S. president.

The publication was removed by Comey after the controversy. The former FBI director argued that he was unaware of the violent connotation of the message and reaffirmed his rejection of any form of violence. Nevertheless, the Secret Service, in a rare move, activated covert surveillance, tracked his cell phone, and followed him by car from North Carolina to his residence in Virginia, according to a report by The New York Times.

The NYT revealed that agents waited for him at his home and then escorted him to Washington for questioning.

Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney, said the decision to follow Mr. Comey was “huge overkill.” 

“It almost seems like someone was exploiting the opportunity to exact retribution against one of President Trump’s enemies,” she added.

Some critics of President Trump interpreted the secret monitoring of Comey and the federal investigation against him as a way to instrumentalize the government, a criticism often leveled against previous Democratic administrations by Republicans and conservative leaders.

Russiagate, a debunked plot

Russiagate, which was very popular during Trump's first presidency, was largely driven by the infamous Steele dossier, a document full of unverified claims that was leaked to judges, members of Congress, the FBI, the CIA, and, of course, the media, serving as the basis for opening a federal investigation and discrediting Trump.

Subsequent investigations, including that of special prosecutor Robert Mueller, found no evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia. Moreover, the lead author of the dossier, Russian Igor Danchenko, acknowledged that the contents of the report came from second-hand rumors overheard in Moscow bars.