{"id":19372,"date":"2026-07-01T20:33:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T20:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=19372"},"modified":"2026-07-01T20:33:00","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T20:33:00","slug":"ex-cia-director-john-brennan-seeks-court-order-requiring-records-from-investigations-be-preserved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=19372","title":{"rendered":"Ex-CIA Director John Brennan seeks court order requiring records from investigations be preserved"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

By ERIC TUCKER<\/strong><\/p>\n

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014\u00a0Former CIA Director John Brennan\u00a0sued the Trump administration Wednesday, demanding a court order that would require officials to preserve records from investigations that he says are targeting him for \u201cwhat amounts to phantom criminal conduct.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u00a0says the records would shed light on the motivations of government officials who are investigating Brennan and would form the basis of defense efforts to dismiss any eventual indictment on grounds that it constitutes a vindictive prosecution.<\/p>\n

Such an argument, his lawyers said, would be supported by the more than 100 verbal or written statements that\u00a0President Donald Trump\u00a0has made since 2017 lambasting Brennan. as well as by the Republican president\u2019s directives to his Department of Justice to initiate investigations of Brennan \u201cwithout regard to factual or legal justification.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo fully consider those motions, the reviewing judge would need to scrutinize the motivations of the Justice Department officials who directed, oversaw, or undertook those actions to determine whether they violated Director Brennan\u2019s rights, and specifically whether they were motivated by a desire to vindictively prosecute him as an act of retribution,\u201d Brennan\u2019s lawyers wrote in the lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington.<\/p>\n

Without an order, the lawsuit contends, the records are at risk of being lost or intentionally deleted.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit amounts to a preemptive strike of sorts on months-long investigations into Brennan and other perceived adversaries of the president, and represents another effort by Brennan\u2019s legal team to sound the alarm on inquiries they believe are part of a pattern of politically motivated probes driven by the White House. It asserts that Brennan is being targeted in a vindictive and selective prosecution arising from Trump\u2019s \u201cobsession with punishing him for his lawful conduct as CIA Director and for his constitutionally protected criticism of the President and the President\u2019s policies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is the reason he is being singled out for investigation of concocted theories of criminal activity, and that will be the dominant reason for any criminal charges resulting from that investigation. That is also why Director Brennan will have an extremely strong basis to challenge those charges as the product of vindictive and selective prosecution,\u201d the lawsuit says.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Investigators based in Florida are\u00a0examining whether he made a false statement to Congress in 2023\u00a0related to an assessment by intelligence agencies documenting Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, when Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton. The other investigation aims to determine whether\u00a0former law enforcement and intelligence officials conspired to undermine Trump, including during the course of the Russian interference investigation.<\/p>\n

Brennan has denied any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

The complaint seeks a court order requiring the preservation of all government records relevant to the investigations, including emails, calendar entries and communications \u2014 whether public or private \u2014 from Trump or other White House officials about the inquiries and efforts to advance them.<\/p>\n

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\u201cGiven these strong indicia of vindictiveness, Director Brennan expects that he will forcefully challenge any eventual indictment as the product of an unconstitutionally vindictive and selective prosecution,\u201d the lawsuit says, adding that the judge presiding over any criminal case would look to those records for a glimpse of the government\u2019s motives.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

\u201cGiven the government\u2019s questionable recent history with respect to its record preservation and other legal obligations, however, Director Brennan has a well-founded concern that those records and communications will not be preserved until such time as the court can review them for evidence of unconstitutional vindictiveness,\u201d Brennan\u2019s lawyers wrote.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit names as defendants Trump and other top officials from his administration, including\u00a0acting Attorney General Todd Blanche,\u00a0FBI Director Kash Patel,\u00a0White House chief of staff Susie Wiles\u00a0and\u00a0CIA Director John Ratcliffe.<\/p>\n

Other defendants include Jason Reding Qui\u00f1ones, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and Joe diGenova, a Reagan administration prosecutor who returned to the Justice Department in April to serve as a special counselor to the attorney general and help oversee the investigations.<\/p>\n

Brennan\u2019s lawyer, Ken Wainstein,\u00a0wrote in December to the chief judge of the federal court in Florida\u00a0asking that the Justice Department be prevented from steering the investigations to a \u201cfavored\u201d Trump administration judge, Aileen Cannon,\u00a0who in 2024 dismissed the classified documents prosecution against Trump.<\/p>\n

Asked about Brennan\u2019s lawsuit, Justice Department spokeswoman Emily Covington said, \u201cWhile we cannot comment on the existence, or lack thereof, of an investigation, it is certainly rich that John Brennan is accusing anyone of a \u2018retribution campaign.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Associated Press writer Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Former CIA Director John Brennan is suing the Trump administration, demanding a court order that would require officials to preserve records from investigations that are targeting him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19371,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-based-on-facts-either-observed-and-verified-directly-by-the-reporter-or-reported-and-verified-from-knowledgeable-sources","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nEx-CIA Director John Brennan seeks court order requiring records from investigations be preserved - Silicon Valley Moving Post<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=19372\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ex-CIA Director John Brennan seeks court order requiring records from investigations be preserved - 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