Questions about government missteps in the electronic surveillance of a onetime Trump campaign adviser had former CIA Director John Brennan pointing at the FBI.
Meet the Press host Chuck Todd pressed Brennan to open up about the Justice Department inspector general’s report on the Trump-Russia investigation, which outlined several “significant” errors and omissions in the FBI’s effort to obtain Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants to monitor Carter Page.
“I would defer to the bureau on the FISA matter, because they’re the ones that actually initiate and then follow through on it,” Brennan said Tuesday on MSNBC regarding whether he would make a determination if there should have been an approved FISA warrant application.
Brennan oversaw the CIA when the FBI began its counterintelligence investigation into members of the Trump campaign suspected of working on behalf of Russia in the summer of 2016. That inquiry, code-named Crossfire Hurricane, was later wrapped into special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, which was unable to establish criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.
Todd noted that Brennan, now an MSNBC contributor, was limited in what he could say due to guidelines on classified information, but that did not stop Todd from trying to pry information from Brennan about how the CIA shared relevant information with the bureau.
At issue was how Inspector General Michael Horowitz found an FBI lawyer improperly altered a document in the final FISA renewal to say Page was “not a source” for another government agency. Horowitz found the lawyer, identified as Kevin Clinesmith, made the alteration after a liaison for the other government agency told the bureau that they had shared information several months before showing Page had a prior relationship with them.
The other agency, which reportedly was the CIA, had informed the FBI in August 2016 that Page was an “operational contact” for them from 2008 to 2013, providing information over the course of his normal business activities about his contacts with Russian intelligence officers. That information did not appear in the FISA application that followed. The initial warrant application was approved by the FISA court in October 2016, and renewals came at three-month intervals in January, April, and June 2017.
Clinesmith, who is no longer with the FBI, is under criminal investigation by U.S. Attorney John Durham as part of his review of the Russia investigation.
Todd asked Brennan, who was not interviewed for Horowitz’s inquiry, whose obligation it was to warn the FBI and how to fix the issue of poor communication between government agencies.
Brennan stressed that there were “joint groups” to share information across intelligence agencies, but he conceded “it’s a difficult thing” to juggle national security and the privacy of an American citizen who is under investigation.
“You want to protect [an] individual’s privacy. You don’t want to presume any type of nefarious activity, but at the same time you want to make sure that information you have in your databases is going to be available to other agencies that have a legitimate interest,” he said.
Brennan also said it was “the FBI’s responsibility” to warn the Trump campaign that the agency suspected some of its members were agents of a foreign power.
After the release of Horowitz’s report, Attorney General William Barr said officials did not follow normal procedures in conducting a full investigation, which he noted would include informing the campaign.
“There certainly were people in the campaign that could be trusted,” Barr told NBC News on Tuesday, pointing to former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Jeff Sessions, an Alabama senator who would later become Trump’s attorney general.
Asked about whether Trump was told during the transition period of Russian interference efforts, Brennan said, “This was not a big secret,” and, “Trump was fully aware, I think, of the things that the Russians were doing” due to the extensive media coverage.
“Mr. Barr tends to underplay the knowledge that was in existence at that time of Russian interference,” he said.
