BREAKING: FBI launches criminal probes into John Brennan, James Comey over Trump-Russia collusion hoax: report

The FBI has launched a criminal investigation into former CIA Director John Brennan as well as former FBI Director James Comey related to the Trump-Russia collusion hoax, according to Fox News.

The outlet reported, citing DOJ sources, that CIA Director John Ratcliffe has given evidence concerning Brennan to FBI Director Kash Patel and that an investigation into Comey is also underway.

The investigation may involve potentially false statements made to Congress. 

The probes come after a review of the investigation into Trump in the Russia collusion investigation, and it was determined that the "decision by agency heads to include the Steele Dossier in the ICA ran counter to fundamental tradecraft principles and ultimately undermined the credibility of a key judgment."  

Ratcliffe declassified a "lessons learned" review of the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) from 2017. The ICA alleged that Russia attempted to push Trump into office, however, the review of the ICA discovered "procedural anomalies" and that officials rushed to judgement in the ICA, thwarting standards used in the intelligence community.  

The Steele Dossier had a slew of false claims related to Trump and had been commissioned by Fusion GPS which was paid for by Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and the DNC. Both Clinton and the DNC paid a fine over that. 

The source who spoke to Fox News could not share specific details surrounding the investigation, but said that Brennan "violated the public’s trust and should be held accountable for it." In 2023, Brennan testified in Congress that the dossier should not have been in the ICA despite pushing for its inclusion in the 2017 ICA, per records in the declassified review. 

Fox News reports, "The false statements portion of the probe stems from a newly declassified email sent to Brennan by the former deputy CIA director in December 2016. That message said that including the dossier in the ICA in any capacity jeopardized 'the credibility of the entire paper.'"

"Despite these objections, Brennan showed a preference for narrative consistency over analytical soundness," the CIA review of the ICA documents stated. "When confronted with specific flaws in the Dossier by the two mission center leaders – one with extensive operational experience and the other with a strong analytic background – he appeared more swayed by the Dossier's general conformity with existing theories than by legitimate tradecraft concerns."

"Brennan ultimately formalized his position in writing, stating that ‘my bottomline is that I believe that the information warrants inclusion in the report,'" the review added. In Congress in 2023, however, he said the opposite. 

Brennan testified before the House committee at the time, "The CIA was very much opposed to having any reference or inclusion of the Steele dossier in the Intelligence Community Assessment. 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."