Obama's team buried a completed intelligence briefing concluding Russia hadn't hacked the 2016 election — then immediately commissioned one that said it did.
This week, FBI agents walked through CIA headquarters to interview the people who were in the room.
What those employees just told federal agents about what John Brennan said could end his freedom.
The FBI Investigation Just Moved Inside CIA Headquarters
Agents from the FBI's Miami field office sat down last week with current and former CIA employees at CIA headquarters in McLean, Virginia.
More interviews are scheduled in the coming weeks.
Several of those being questioned worked directly on the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment – the report that told the world Russia interfered in the 2016 election specifically to help Donald Trump win.
That report burned three years of Trump's first term.
Special counsels. Congressional hearings. Impeachment proceedings. Every night on cable news, your president was called a Russian asset.
It all started with that assessment.
And the FBI is now inside the building where it was built, asking the people who built it what really happened.
What the Declassified Russiagate Documents Actually Show
On December 8, 2016, a completed President's Daily Brief landed on James Clapper's desk.
It concluded Russia had not hacked or altered the 2016 election.
Clapper's office buried it.
A memo went out instructing staff the briefing "will not run tomorrow and is not likely to run until next week."
The next day – December 9 – Obama convened a White House meeting with Brennan, Clapper, Comey, Susan Rice, and others.
Obama directed the intelligence community to create a new assessment detailing Russian election meddling.
The old assessment – the one that cleared the election – never ran.
The new one – the one that accused Putin of personally trying to elect Trump – became the Intelligence Community Assessment Brennan delivered in January 2017.
Tulsi Gabbard declassified more than 100 internal government documents last July proving exactly that sequence of events.
That is the report the FBI is now investigating at Langley.
The Steele Dossier Perjury Case Comes Down to Five Words
Brennan's problem is not just what he did in 2016.
His problem is what he said about it in 2023.
On May 11, 2023, he sat before Jim Jordan's committee under oath and swore the CIA "was very much opposed to having any reference or inclusion of the Steele dossier in the Intelligence Community Assessment."
Documents prove that is a lie.
Two senior CIA officers with deep Russia expertise argued directly with Brennan that the dossier did not belong in the assessment because it "failed to meet basic tradecraft standards."
They told him to his face the dossier was garbage.
The CIA's deputy director for analysis sent Brennan an email warning that including the dossier would threaten "the credibility of the entire document."
Brennan's response, documented in the 2020 House Intelligence Committee report: "Yes, but doesn't it ring true?"
He overruled his own experts.
Forced the dossier in.
Then told Congress his agency never wanted it there.
Federal perjury carries a five-year statute of limitations.
That clock started running on May 11, 2023.
Prosecutors have until 2028.
The CIA Employees Walking Into Those Interview Rooms Know Everything
The FBI is not just gathering paperwork.
Agents are sitting across from people who were in those meetings.
People who watched a completed intelligence assessment get buried and a new one get built on a Clinton campaign opposition research document.
Those people are now under oath.
Jim Jordan's criminal referral to Pam Bondi last October called Brennan's 2023 testimony "a brazen attempt to knowingly and willfully testify falsely and fictitiously to material facts."
Tulsi Gabbard and John Ratcliffe both made criminal referrals.
The DOJ replaced the career prosecutor who said the case was too weak with Joe DiGenova – a Trump loyalist who spent years calling Brennan a traitor on national television.
Grand jury subpoenas have already gone out.
The machinery is fully assembled.
The only thing left is what those CIA employees say when they sit down with FBI agents – and whether their answers match what Brennan told Congress.
Brennan Spent Years Calling Trump the Traitor
For years after leaving office, Brennan collected his MSNBC contributor paycheck and told anyone who would listen that Trump was a threat to American democracy.
He called Trump's Helsinki press conference "treasonous."
Then spent the next four years on MSNBC telling America who the real patriots were.
All of it – while sitting on an email proving he knew the dossier was garbage and pushed it into a national intelligence assessment over the objections of his own analysts.
Then lied about it to Congress.
The FBI was at Langley last week.
The grand jury is waiting.
Brennan is running out of people to call traitors.
Sources:
- Josh Christenson, "CIA officers questioned amid FBI's John Brennan Russiagate probe," New York Post, May 12, 2026.
- Ashley Oliver, "Bondi confirms DOJ has received criminal referral alleging Brennan perjury over Steele dossier," Fox News, February 11, 2026.
- Jim Jordan, "Chairman Jordan Refers John Brennan to DOJ for Criminal Prosecution," House Judiciary Committee, October 21, 2025.
- Tulsi Gabbard, "New Evidence Uncovers Obama-Directed Creation of False Intelligence Report," ODNI Press Release, July 23, 2025.
- Byron York, "How John Brennan Lied to Congress," Washington Examiner, October 29, 2025.
