Ex-CIA Head Seeks Order Saving Records 07/02 06:34

   

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former CIA Director John Brennan sued the Trump 
administration Wednesday, demanding a court order that would require officials 
to preserve records from investigations that he says are targeting him for 
"what amounts to phantom criminal conduct."

   The lawsuit says 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 the case 
constitutes a vindictive prosecution.

   Such an argument, his lawyers said, would be supported by the more than 100 
verbal or written statements that President Donald Trump has made since 2017 
lambasting Brennan and by the Republican president's directives to his Justice 
Department to initiate investigations of Brennan "without regard to factual or 
legal justification."

   "To 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's rights, and specifically whether they were motivated by a desire to 
vindictively prosecute him as an act of retribution," Brennan's lawyers wrote 
in the lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington.

   Without an order, the lawsuit contends, the records are at risk of being 
lost or intentionally deleted.

   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's 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 manner arising from Trump's "obsession with punishing 
him for his lawful conduct as CIA Director and for his constitutionally 
protected criticism of the President and the President's policies.

   "That 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," the lawsuit says.

   Investigators based in Florida are examining whether Brennan made a false 
statement to Congress in 2023 related 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 former law enforcement and intelligence officials conspired over the 
last decade to undermine Trump, including during the course of the Russian 
interference investigation.

   Brennan has denied any wrongdoing.

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

   "Given 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," the lawsuit says, 
adding that the judge presiding over any criminal case would look to those 
records for a glimpse of the government's motives.

   The lawsuit says there's a "very real risk" that the requested 
communications will not be available by the time any indictment is brought, 
either because of technology changes that make deletion of records more routine 
or automatic or because of a Trump administration habit of "failing to observe 
their legal obligation to maintain such records."

   "Given the government's 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," Brennan's lawyers wrote.

   The lawsuit names as defendants Trump and other top officials from his 
administration, including acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, FBI Director 
Kash Patel, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and CIA Director John 
Ratcliffe.

   Other defendants include Jason Reding Quiones, 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.

   Brennan's lawyer, Ken Wainstein, wrote in December to the chief judge of the 
federal court in Florida asking that the Justice Department be prevented from 
steering investigations related to Brennan to a "favored" Trump administration 
judge, Aileen Cannon, who in 2024 dismissed the classified documents 
prosecution against Trump.

   Asked about Brennan's lawsuit, Justice Department spokeswoman Emily 
Covington said in a statement, "While we cannot comment on the existence, or 
lack thereof, of an investigation, it is certainly rich that John Brennan is 
accusing anyone of a 'retribution campaign.'"