Former CIA Director John Brennan suggested more exists on the “financial front” than the public knows within the alleged ties between members of ex-President Donald Trump’s orbit and Russia.
Brennan, a longtime intelligence official and vocal Trump critic, acknowledged during a virtual conversation last week that it was up to the FBI to conduct the Russia investigation but indicated there were some troubling developments that came to his attention before leaving office.
“When I was director of the CIA until I left on Jan. 20 of 2017, there were a number of very concerning interactions between individuals affiliated with the Trump campaign and individuals affiliated with Russia and Russian intelligence. And that’s where I think it was incumbent upon the FBI to investigate that,” he told Juliette Kayyem, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and a former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security.
Brennan talked about how special counsel Robert Mueller, who took up the FBI’s investigation into alleged ties between the Trump 2016 campaign and Russia in May 2017, found “insufficient evidence” to indict anyone for criminal conspiracy but stressed that Mueller’s report did not address the issue of collusion, which is not a crime.
He said the actions of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, particularly the finding that the longtime lobbyist shared internal polling data with a Russian man linked to Russian intelligence, fell under the “rubric” of collusion in his view. Last month, the Treasury Department announced sanctions against Konstantin Kilimnik, Manafort’s associate, assessing he is a Russian intelligence services agent who provided Kremlin spies with “sensitive information on polling and campaign strategy” during the 2016 presidential race.
TRUMP NEVER REVOKED JOHN BRENNAN’S SECURITY CLEARANCE
Brennan repeated that it was up to the FBI to investigate but added: “Who knows what the truth is in terms of the extent of that interaction.” That’s when he mentioned the financial side.
“I don’t believe that we still know the totality of things on the financial front because so many things are hidden and there were a number of individuals in the Trump orbit that I think were engaging in very inappropriate dalliances with Russians and individuals associated with Russia, and they should have been reporting these things to FBI, but they were seeking to gain advantage against Hillary Clinton,” he said, referring to Trump’s 2016 election rival.
“I think, at a minimum, it was very unethical, even immoral, and maybe illegal activity that was taking place between some members of the Trump campaign and Russia,” Brennan added.
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Mueller’s investigation stretched into the spring of 2019, culminating with the release of a 448-page report and dozens of indictments, although none pertained to criminal conspiracy with Russia. But, from what is visible to the public in the partially redacted report, Mueller’s team did not cross what became known as Trump’s “red line”; that is, digging deep into the former president’s finances or that of his businesses. That became a point of contention with at least one of Mueller’s top prosecutors, Andrew Weissmann, who has insisted the team “could have done more” in the investigation on multiple fronts. Mueller released a rare statement last year saying he stood by the decisions and conclusions of the inquiry.
Still, the finances of Trump and his businesses are still under scrutiny by investigators in New York. In fact, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. convened a grand jury to consider evidence in the criminal investigation into Trump’s business dealings, according to multiple reports on Tuesday.
Vance’s effort, which included a successful legal battle to obtain Trump’s tax returns, recently dovetailed with a separate inquiry being run by New York Attorney General Letitia James. Both are Democrats.
“We have informed the Trump Organization that our investigation into the organization is no longer purely civil in nature. We are now actively investigating the Trump Organization in a criminal capacity, along with the Manhattan DA,” Fabien Levy, a spokesman for James, told the Washington Examiner on May 18.
Trump blasted the investigations, calling them a “continuation of the greatest political Witch Hunt in the history of the United States.”
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Now, the conduct of the Russia investigation is being examined by special counsel John Durham, whose team interviewed Brennan at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, for eight hours in August, after which a spokesman for the former CIA director said Brennan was not under criminal investigation and provided the prosecutor “details on the efforts made by the Intelligence Community to understand and disrupt the actions taken by Russian to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.”
Brennan told Kayyem he would be willing to access his classified records if he has reason to do it in the future. “You know, if there’s more congressional testimony or more investigations by Department of Justice people, I may go in and review my files, but I don’t do it just out of curiosity for myself,” he said.
