Exclusive: FBI questions CIA officers over Russia assessment in Brennan probe, sources say
Source: Reuters
May 12, 2026 6:01 AM EDT Updated 2 hours ago
NEW YORK, May 12 (Reuters) - The FBI has begun interviewing current and former CIA employees as part of the Department of Justice’s investigation into ex-CIA director John Brennan over his role in an intelligence finding that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. election to help Donald Trump, according to five sources familiar with the matter. Employees were questioned last week by agents out of the Miami field office at CIA headquarters in McLean, Virginia.
Interviews are expected to continue throughout the coming weeks, three of the sources said. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida has for months pursued an investigation into Brennan. Prosecutors have been examining whether he made a false statement to Congress in 2023 in discussing a 2017 intelligence assessment that looked at Russian interference in the 2016 election.
The core conclusions of that assessment, which focused on Russia’s cyber-espionage and influence efforts to boost Trump’s candidacy over Hillary Clinton, were later affirmed by the Justice Department, a bipartisan Senate committee and a CIA review. Still, President Trump, who has described the Russia investigation as a “hoax”, has pushed prosecutors to dig into those he perceives to have been involved in spearheading the probe, including Brennan.
A source familiar with the Brennan investigation said that FBI agents had questioned about a dozen current and former CIA officers who worked on the 2017 assessment. The current and former CIA officers are being asked about Brennan's role in producing the assessment and the extent to which its conclusions were shaped by a controversial dossier of unverified claims about Trump's ties to Russia.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/fbi-questions-cia-officers-over-russia-assessment-brennan-probe-sources-say-2026-05-12/
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