George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley appeared on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” on Tuesday and questioned whether former FBI Director James Comey’s 2020 Senate testimony could potentially lead to perjury charges.
According to Fox News Digital, both former FBI Director James Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan are reportedly under criminal investigation for allegedly giving false testimony to Congress regarding their roles in promoting the discredited Steele dossier, which accused Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign of conspiring with Russia.
During Tuesday’s broadcast, Fox’s Laura Ingraham, who is an attorney, replayed a clip of Comey’s 2020 Senate testimony—where he claimed ignorance of major flaws in the dossier—and labeled his response “dismissive.”
“Now, I remember listening to that testimony and just almost falling out of my chair,” Turley said. “Virtually everything he said was untrue. In fact, the IG reports shredded the FBI and said that they didn’t follow protocol, that they ignored counterintelligence. So they pushed the Steele dossier forward, and these were two of the key individuals who did that.”
“So the question is does any of this trip the wire to perjury? Both of these are sophisticated players,” Turley added. “You’ll notice that they’re very careful in how they word this. You know Comey is very careful to say that there wasn’t basically malicious intent. Not that there weren’t mistakes, and time and time again Comey portrayed himself as ignorant of all of these countervailing sources.”
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Sources told Fox News Digital on Tuesday that an investigation into James Comey and John Brennan is underway, with some insiders saying the FBI is reportedly treating their testimonies as part of a potential “conspiracy.”
According to the outlet, the probe centers on a 2016 email from the then-deputy CIA director warning Brennan that including the Steele dossier in the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) could undermine “the credibility of the entire paper.”
Despite this warning, Brennan later testified before Congress in May 2023 that the CIA “was very much opposed to having any reference or inclusion of the Steele dossier in the Intelligence Community Assessment.” Brennan said: “And so they sent over a copy of the dossier to say that this was going to be separate from the rest of that assessment.”
