Former CIA director John Brennan said Tuesday that he did not know whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Kremlin, but told lawmakers that he had seen intelligence that triggered questions about the possibility of such coordination.
Brennan’s remarks came during a House Intelligence Committee hearing on Russian election interference. The panel, along a number of other congressional committees, the FBI, and a newly appointed special counsel, are conducting investigations into Russian meddling that include any potential links between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.
“I encountered and am aware of information and intelligence that revealed contacts and interactions between Russian officials and U.S. persons involved in the Trump campaign, that I was concerned about because of known Russian efforts to suborn such individuals,” Brennan told lawmakers.
Those contacts required further investigation, and served as the basis for the FBI probe, he added.
“By the time I left office on January 20, I had unresolved questions in my mind as to whether or not the Russians had been successful in getting U.S. persons involved in the campaign or not to work on their behalf, again, either in a witting or unwitting fashion,” Brennan said.
The Kremlin frequently works to cultivate personal relationships with influential individuals—often covertly—to eventually get these individuals “to do things on their behalf,” he said.
“My radar goes up when I see that the Russians are actively involved in a particular operation or campaign and that U.S. persons are being contacted by Russian officials,” he said.
Brennan could not definitively say that “collusion” between the Trump camp and Russia existed. He described the FBI investigation into the matter as “well-founded.”
“I don’t have sufficient information to make a determination whether or not such cooperation or complicity or collusion was taking place, but I know there was a basis to have individuals pull those threads,” he said.
The former CIA chief had been scheduled to testify before the House intelligence committee months earlier. Brennan’s appearance was postponed amid allegations from the panel’s chairman, Devin Nunes, that Trump transition officials were caught up in incidental surveillance and had their names identified within the intelligence community. Nunes suggested the “unmasking” of names was meant to undermine the Trump administration.
