By Isabella Torregiani
11:17am PDT, Jul 7, 2025
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Former CIA director
John Brennan is facing perjury allegations after a newly uncovered email emerged during the agency's internal review of the 2016 Trump-Russia collusion investigation. CIA agents claim that there are discrepancies between Brennan's sworn testimony and his written orders, raising questions about his involvement in the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA).
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In 2016, under the direction of then-President Barack Obama, John Brennan helped lead the investigation into potential collusion between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and Russia. However, a recent CIA review concluded that Brennan "ultimately undermined the credibility of a key judgment" when he insisted on including the Steele dossier — over the strong objections of the two most senior Russia experts, who said it "did not meet even the most basic tradecraft standards." At the time, then-Deputy CIA Director for Analysis David Cohen warned Brennan that incorporating the dossier could jeopardize "the credibility of the entire paper."
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Despite opposition, John Brennan insisted on including the Steele dossier in the assessment, stating that he believed the information warranted inclusion in the report. The dossier, compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele, contained unverified claims — including allegations that Donald Trump had s** workers urinate on a hotel bed in Moscow. A 2023 report by special counsel John Durham concluded that "the FBI was not able to corroborate a single allegation contained in the Steele Report."
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The CIA's review found that when John Brennan was "confronted with specific flaws in the Dossier by the two [Russia] mission center leaders," he appeared more persuaded by the dossier's alignment with "existing theories" than by the concerns raised over its reliability. By including it, the agency found, the ICA "implicitly elevated unsubstantiated claims to the status of credible supporting evidence, compromising the analytical integrity of the judgment."
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During a congressional hearing on May 23, 2017, John Brennan testified under oath that the Steele dossier "wasn't part of the corpus of intelligence information that we had." Said Brennan, "It was not in any way used as a basis for the Intelligence Community Assessment that was done." According to the CIA's latest findings, that statement does not hold up, prompting new accusations that Brennan may have perjured himself.
