Former CIA Director John Brennan said Congress needs to investigate Russian interference in the election, including claims that President Trump’s campaign worked with Russian intelligence officers, in a truly bipartisan fashion.
Speaking Sunday on CBS News, Brennan said he’s worried about reports of the White House contacting Republican lawmakers to help push back against press reports on Russian involvement in the election. He said those lawmakers need to be independent and truly bipartisan in order to do a proper job.
“It’s very important that that investigation be done in a bipartisan fashion,” Brennan said. “If only one party is leading that investigation, it’s not going to deliver the results the American people deserve.”
Reports surfaced this week that the FBI told White House officials some recent reports had overstated what they were finding in their investigation. The White House then asked the FBI, and reportedly the CIA and leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committees, to push back with other reporters on those reports.
Brennan said that’s an unusual request, in his experience.
“I never did that on behalf of a White House request, the White House never made that request of me,” he said.
Brennan, who was appointed CIA chief by Barack Obama and has been repeatedly critical of Trump in recent weeks, also had tough words for Trump’s immigration order banning immigration from seven majority-Muslim countries where terrorists are active.
An order issued the week after Trump came into office was shot down by the courts, but the administration plans to hand down a new order next week. Brennan said the immigration order doesn’t exactly help fight terrorism.
“I don’t think the travel ban is going to help in any significant way,” he said.
Brennan added, “It sends a very bad message to individuals who are being signaled out because of their nationality” and it shows the administration is focusing on Muslims.
While Brennan agreed that examining a person’s country of origin should be part of the vetting process, it should not play such a major role, he said.
He agreed with a Department of Homeland Security report, summarily dismissed by the White House, that argued focusing on nationality was not going to work.
“That report puts its finger on it,” he said, “that citizenship is not an indicator of potential terrorist action.”
