Report: Prosecutor John Durham Looking into Ex-CIA Director Brennan’s Role in Russia Hoax

The federal prosecutor probing the origins of the Russia-collusion hoax has requested “emails, call logs and other documents” from John Brennan, former President Barack Obama’s CIA director turned NBC and MSNBC contributor, the New York Times reported Thursday.

Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham, the prosecutor charged with conducting the review into the origins of the Russia collusion probe, “wants to learn what Mr. Brennan told other officials, including the former FBI director James B. Comey, about his and the C.I.A.’s views of a notorious dossier of assertions about Russia and Trump associates,” the Times noted, adding:

Mr. Durham’s pursuit of Mr. Brennan’s records is certain to add to accusations that Mr. Trump is using the Justice Department to go after his perceived enemies. The president has long attacked Mr. Brennan as part of his narrative about a so-called deep state cabal of Obama administration officials who tried to sabotage his campaign, and Mr. Trump has held out Mr. Durham’s investigation as a potential avenue for proving those claims.

Brennan is considered an ardent critic of the Trump administration.

Durham is also investigating whether Brennan “privately contradicted his public comments, including May 2017 testimony to Congress, about both the dossier and about any debate among the intelligence agencies over their conclusions on Russia’s interference,” the Times learned.

In October, Brennan told NBC News that Durham had expressed an interest in interviewing “a number of current and former intelligence officials involved in examining Russia’s effort to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, including former CIA Director John Brennan and former director of national intelligence James Clapper.”

At the time, NBC News reported that U.S. Attorney General William Barr had significantly expanded Durham’s review into the origins of the Russian collusion hoax investigation after “finding something significant,” without elaborating further.

Durham also wants to talk to “CIA analysts involved in the intelligence assessment of Russia’s activities, prompting some of them to hire lawyers,” NBC News added, citing three anonymous sources from the agency.

Citing three anonymous sources, the Times reported Thursday evening that Durham has begun scrutinizing the role Brennan played in how the intelligence community assessed the 2016 U.S. election interference at the hands of Russia.

The sources explicitly told the Times it remains unclear whether the prosecutor has uncovered any crimes. A recently released audit by the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz found “significant errors” in the way the FBI investigated the Trump campaign for uncorroborated collusion with Russia in interfering in the 2016 elections. The IG report indicated that Obama may have known about the investigation into the Trump campaign.