The Federal Bureau of Investigation plans to interview about six witnesses in the criminal inquiry concerning former Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan and the U.S. intelligence community's 2017 assessment that concluded Russia sought to influence the 2016 presidential election to aid Donald Trump, two people familiar with the matter said.
Those planned interviews - not previously reported - are expected to involve former intelligence officials who participated in preparing the assessment, the sources said. Investigators aim to probe the origins of the Trump-Russia inquiry, a subject President Trump has repeatedly asked prosecutors to revisit, according to the two people with knowledge of the investigation.
The investigation represents a broad effort by the Justice Department under the Trump administration to re-examine a high-profile inquiry whose central conclusions were later reaffirmed by the Justice Department, a bipartisan Senate committee and a CIA review. Critics say the review of these findings raises concerns that prosecutorial resources are being used to target political adversaries and to re-litigate a defining controversy from Mr. Trump's first term.
Reuters could not determine the precise identities of the individuals expected to be interviewed in the coming weeks. The sources said investigators have already carried out a small number of witness interviews as part of the probe.
The inquiry is being handled by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami and has been active for several months, the sources said. According to those familiar with the case, the inquiry appears to center on congressional testimony Brennan gave in 2023 describing how the 2017 assessment was put together.
Prosecutors informed Brennan that he is a target in the investigation, his attorney disclosed in a December letter to the chief district court judge in Miami. The referral that set the inquiry in motion came from Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, a Trump ally and the Republican chair of the House Judiciary Committee, who in October alleged Brennan had made false statements to the committee during his 2023 testimony.
Brennan, who works as a cable news analyst and has been a frequent critic of Donald Trump, has characterized reports of investigations into him as politically motivated and an inappropriate use of the criminal justice system. His attorney, in the December letter, argued there was no "legally justifiable basis" for the investigation and accused prosecutors of employing improper tactics. Brennan's lawyer declined to comment further when contacted. A Justice Department spokesperson also declined to comment, and the FBI did not respond to a request for comment.
Two law enforcement officials told Reuters that Todd Blanche - who became acting attorney general this month when he stepped into the Justice Department role after Pam Bondi - previously helped oversee the investigation while serving as Bondi's senior deputy and convened meetings with senior DOJ leaders in recent weeks to review progress. Bondi, who had faced criticism from President Trump about the speed and outcomes of probes he requested, was removed from the post earlier this month.
Sources said the witness interviews that are expected to take place were scheduled before Bondi's removal on April 2 and do not appear to be a direct response to her departure, according to two additional people familiar with the probe.
The contested intelligence assessment at the center of the inquiry was issued in January 2017, days before Mr. Trump was sworn in as president. It concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin aimed to aid the Republican candidate and to disparage the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton.
Mr. Trump has consistently labeled earlier investigations examining his ties to Moscow as a "hoax" and has described them as politically motivated attempts to undermine his administration, which lasted from 2017 to 2021.
Prosecutors have already issued at least two rounds of subpoenas to obtain material about how the 2017 assessment was drafted, seeking information from a range of former intelligence and law enforcement officials, the sources said.
Legal obstacles could complicate any prosecution in southern Florida. Brennan's 2023 testimony took place before a House committee in Washington, D.C., not in Florida, and that geographic disconnect could prompt challenges to jurisdiction. The article's sources noted that judges and grand juries in Washington have previously been reluctant to pursue investigations and prosecutions of targets associated with Mr. Trump.
The Jordan referral specifically accused Brennan of lying to the House Judiciary Committee when discussing the so-called Steele dossier - a compilation of unverified allegations assembled by a former British intelligence officer and financed in part by political opponents of Mr. Trump. The dossier has been cited by Mr. Trump and his supporters as evidence of bias in the original Russia probe.
Brennan has repeatedly stated that the CIA opposed incorporating the dossier into the formal 2017 intelligence assessment. According to the information disclosed, a summary of the dossier's findings was attached to the classified version of the assessment.
Note on reporting limits - Where the available information was limited or anonymous sources were cited, this article reflects those constraints and does not assert details beyond what those sources provided.