Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett suggested Wednesday on “Hannity” that bringing former FBI Director James Comey’s and former CIA Director John Brennan’s potential cases to prosecution in Washington, D.C. could be a “fool’s errand” due to political bias.
On Tuesday, Fox News Digital reported that both Comey and Brennan are allegedly under criminal investigation for potential wrongdoing regarding the infamous Steele dossier. While discussing the potential investigation, guest host Kellyanne Conway asked Jarrett what legal process the FBI will possibly go through, asking if the reported evidence could be enough for an indictment.
“You’d have to go to a grand jury in Washington, D.C. and get an indictment,” Jarrett said. “Then, of course, bring the prosecution. In D.C., bringing a case against a Democrat and a liberal is almost a fool’s errand. As for James Comey, I think they’re looking at defrauding the government, a conspiracy and deprivation of rights under color of law. That is, knowingly using fabricated false evidence to support a case against Donald Trump.”
During President Donald Trump’s first term, the Steele dossier paved the roadmap for the FBI’s investigation of alleged collusion between his first presidential campaign and Russia. The reported investigation comes after current CIA Director John Ratcliffe declassified a “lessons learned” review of the creation of the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) on Thursday, revealing Brennan’s mishaps. (RELATED: ‘I Am Clueless’: John Brennan Plays Dumb As Feds Zero In)
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According to the ICA, Brennan had been the leading force in incorporating the now-debunked Steele dossier into the ICA, ultimately rushing the process and creating “procedural anomalies” that allegedly allowed officials to divert from typical standards.
Among the newly declassified information, an email sent to him in December 2016 by the former deputy CIA director warned that including the dossier in the ICA would jeopardize “the credibility of the entire paper,” according to Fox News Digital.
With the new information, Brennan’s testimony to Congress in 2023 has reportedly been called into question, as he claimed he didn’t approve of the dossier being included.
During Brennan’s time pushing the dossier, concerns regarding his political bias against Trump had been vocalized. Army Brig. Gen. Anthony Tata alleged to Fox News in 2018 that Brennan wanted to “overthrow” Trump, after Brennan said that year that Trump’s comments during a joint press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin had been “treasonous.”
The FBI’s leadership under Comey has also been called into question for political bias, as Comey flip-flopped in his support of the dossier during his hearings.
In 2018, the former FBI director admitted to Congress that the agency had not verified the dossier prior to its reliance on it to obtain a FISA warrant on Trump’s then-campaign adviser Carter Page. At the time, Comey claimed to lawmakers that Republicans supported the dossier, attempting to point out that the documents had been “a politically motivated effort, first by Republicans, then by Democrats.”
However, by 2020, Comey pleaded ignorance to the Senate Judiciary Committee about knowing there had been significant problems with the dossier’s reliability, blaming his staff for not notifying him about certain issues.
In May, Comey reportedly had been interviewed by the U.S. Secret Service after posting a picture depicting “86 47” on his Instagram, saying he found a “cool shell formation” while walking on the beach.
“The statute of limitations, which is five years or seven years, is actually suspended or told whenever incriminating evidence is deliberately withheld or fraudulently concealed,” Jarrett added. “So I don’t think the statute of limitations is a problem here because we’re just now learning of some of the withheld, concealed evidence.”
Over the years, D.C.’s courts have been called out for political bias, notably against Trump as former special counsel Jack Smith brought his election interference case against the president through D.C. in 2023. Smith later dropped all charges against Trump after he won the 2024 presidential election in November.
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