Calls for criminal prosecution of former CIA Director John Brennan are intensifying following a bombshell report alleging his deep involvement in advancing the 2016 Russiagate hoax.
Former CIA officer Bryan Dean Wright has accused Brennan of deliberately manipulating the 2016 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA), which was compiled in response to claims that Donald Trump’s presidential campaign colluded with Russian operatives to sway the election.
Wright claims that Brennan, while serving as CIA director, pushed to include the discredited Steele dossier in the agency’s assessment. Even more damning, he alleges that Brennan was a key figure in leaking the dossier to the media in the lead-up to the 2016 election.
Brennan, a former CIA officer, retired in 2017 after serving under President Barack Obama. As part of an elite group of intelligence officials, he was tasked by Obama with determining whether Russia had interfered in the 2016 election. However, a special counsel concluded in 2023 that any alleged Russian interference was unrelated to Donald Trump’s campaign.
Wright argued that both Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey—who worked closely with the CIA during the Russiagate investigation—should face criminal prosecution. It follows closely on the heels of another bombshell from current CIA Director John Ratcliffe, who last week released a report titled “Tradecraft Review of the 2016 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) on Russian Election Interference.” The report directly implicates his predecessor, Brennan, in the growing scandal.
Passages in Ratcliffe’s report describe “excessively involved” Obama appointees participating in early drafts of the first document, which was rushed to completion in a “chaotic” and “atypical” process that he calls “markedly unconventional.”
The current CIA director concluded that a “potential political motive” may have influenced the leak of the Steele dossier and emphasized that his review was carried out by career analysts within the agency’s Directorate of Analysis.
Shortly after leaving office in 2017, Brennan told The Wall Street Journal he had never read the Steele dossier—compiled by a former intelligence operative working for an opposition research firm hired by the Clinton campaign.
However, former CIA employees under Brennan, including Bryan Dean Wright, have since come forward to dispute that claim, accusing him of lying.
However, Brennan went beyond simply participating in the ICA process—he deliberately isolated its authors within the CIA, restricting input from nonpolitical appointees on the National Intelligence Council who had raised concerns about the Steele dossier’s credibility, Wright wrote in a report for Fox News.
The report was distributed to “more than 200 U.S. officials”—an unusually large number for such a highly compartmentalized product. Wright argued this was a deliberate move designed to increase the chances of the Steele dossier leaking to the public.
“In doing so, they tried to destroy not just President Trump, but also the Republic itself. And that’s why this still matters,” stated Wright. “These men thought they knew what was best for America, and they didn’t give a damn what voters like you thought. It was their country – not yours – and they were willing to act with their profound powers to destroy a politician they didn’t like.”
