Former CIA Director John Brennan said he is “aghast” about intelligence and law enforcement leaders in the Trump administration who are revealing secrets about the Russia investigation.
One top official he named as a person he hopes could counter “this type of abominable abuse of authority” is FBI Director Christopher Wray, someone who President Trump has signaled could soon be forced out of the job.
During an appearance on MSNBC, Brennan talked about how the United States could be setting itself up for the Russians to interfere in the 2020 election as they did in 2016. He said acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell and others appear to be focused on fulfilling the political wishes of the White House to protect the president when they should be prioritizing national security.
“I just think that what Richard Grenell and others are doing now raises some serious questions about the ongoing capabilities, focus of the intelligence and law enforcement community,” Brennan said. “If they are being manipulated at the very top for political purposes, who knows what is happening as far as our defenses against these determined efforts on the part of our enemies.”
“As we have talked about the upcoming November election, how the Russians and others are going to seek to try to once again interfere and influence the outcome, I just am very concerned that some of those at the very top are not going to fulfill the duties that are entrusted to them by the American people,” he added. “I’m just hoping that individuals like Chris Wray, who is a remarkable public servant, will continue to stay strong in the face of this type of abominable abuse of authority.”
Brennan, a vocal Trump critic, was interviewed by MSNBC’s Brian Williams and Nicolle Wallace, who began the segment by reading out a tweet of his, which claimed the president’s “propaganda and disinformation machine … far surpasses even Russia’s ability to trample the truth, harm U.S. security, & undermine America’s reputation worldwide.”
The tweet followed the release of a declassified memo showing how information about retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn was widely disseminated across the government between the 2016 election and Trump’s inauguration. Brennan was on the list of authorized recipients. Republicans have alleged since 2017 that Obama-era officials abused their unmasking authority to target associates of Trump’s presidential campaign during the Russia investigation, while Democrats have defended the intelligence-gathering process, arguing that the collection of identifying information is inevitable.
In recent weeks, Republicans have become increasingly frustrated with Wray for his resistance to fulfilling document requests. They were particularly incensed after a U.S. attorney appointed by Attorney General William Barr pried open secrets about the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation, specifically information related to the case of Flynn, who briefly served as Trump’s first national security adviser.
Trump said the “jury is still out” with regard to Wray during an appearance last week on Fox & Friends. The president noted that he told Barr to “handle it,” but he also said, “In theory, I’m chief law enforcement officer.”
After the Justice Department filed to dismiss the case against Flynn, Barr defended Wray in an interview with CBS News. He said the FBI director has “been very helpful” to various investigations, including U.S. Attorney John Durham’s criminal investigation of the Russia inquiry.
“There are a lot of cases in the Department of Justice, and I don’t consider it the director’s responsibility to make sure that all the documents are produced in each case. So I don’t — I wouldn’t say that this has affected my confidence in Director Wray,” he said.
Trump nominated Wray to take over the FBI after he fired FBI Director James Comey in May 2017.
Durham is reportedly looking into numerous highly sensitive issues, including whether Brennan took politicized actions to pressure the rest of the intelligence community to match his conclusions about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s motivations during the 2016 presidential election.
Grenell is reportedly declassifying information that shows Brennan “suppressed” intelligence on Russia wanting Hillary Clinton to win the 2016 election. Fox News chief White House correspondent Ed Henry said Tuesday evening that “it could get sticky” for Brennan, who served as CIA director under President Barack Obama, due to his role in developing the 2017 intelligence community assessment on Russian election interference that determined with “moderate” to “high” confidence that Putin and the Kremlin sought to boost Trump’s 2016 election chances.
