Russiagate Revisited: An Unforced Error that Highlights Russia’s Interference in the 2016 Election

This is the last of a three-part series on reports that Trump CIA Director John Ratcliffe has referred two Obama-era officials — John Brennan and James Comey, then directors of the CIA and FBI, respectively — for criminal investigation. To understand what the referral is about, and why it is a political gambit rather than a viable prosecutorial exercise, we need to go back to the so-called Russiagate scandal that beleaguered the first Trump administration. Here are part 1 and part 2.

In part 2 of this series, we looked at Obama-era CIA Director John Brennan’s central role in the Russiagate scandal in comparison to the nonexistent evidence that he misled House investigators during 2023 testimony. If that’s all there is, then no basis exists for an FBI criminal probe of Brennan.