Judge dismisses former CIA director’s bid to preserve probe records

A federal judge on Thursday dismissed John Brennan’s effort to obtain a court order requiring the Trump administration preserve all records related to its inquiry of the former CIA director.

U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb dismissed Brennan’s lawsuit, finding his claims, although “troubling,” to be speculative at this point in time. Brennan had sought all records related to these investigations in order to prepare a defense should he face prosecution in the future.

“Brennan’s allegations—that he is being targeted by the Trump Administration not because of his conduct, but because he has opposed the current president—are deeply concerning. If he was eventually able to prove those allegations true, that would certainly suggest that his potential prosecution is vindictive,” Cobb wrote. “But even taking all of Brennan’s allegations to be truthful at this stage, the injury he alleges is simply too attenuated from the actions he seeks to enjoin to warrant a finding of standing here.”

“The facts Brennan pleads—which, taken as true, are certainly troubling—imply not an inexorable injury, but a speculative one,” she added.

Brennan, who is a MS NOW contributor, pointed to several Trump administration officials’ questionable history of preserving records, specifically pointing to top officials’ use of automatically deleting Signal messages. But Cobb was not persuaded.

“For most Defendants in this case—[Attorney General Todd] Blanche, [U.S. Attorney Jason] Reding Quiñones, [Joe] diGenova, [FBI Director Kash] Patel, the Executive Office of the President, the CIA, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence—there are no allegations of non-preservation at all,” she wrote.

Neither the Justice Department nor Brennan immediately responded to MS NOW’s requests for comment.

The ruling comes one month after Cobb heard arguments over Brennan’s bid for a court order. During that hearing she indicated she was skeptical of the effort.

“It seems like it relies on a number of contingencies, including whether or not there’s going to be an indictment,” Cobb said at the time.

Lawyers for Brennan had argued the threat of prosecution was real after Brennan had been subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury as part of a government investigation into him.

“The threat of prosecution remains quite real, quite tangible,” said Kenneth Wainstein, a lawyer representing Brennan.

The government pushed back on Brennan’s allegations during the hearing, arguing Brennan’s suit is not only unprecedented but also speculative — that the former CIA director is asking the judge to weigh in on something he merely thinks might happen.

“It’s clear that the plaintiff wants Your Honor to weigh in on things that he thinks will color the future process of a case if he is indicted,” Jeremy Newman, a lawyer representing the government, told the judge during the hearing. “And that is one of the reasons courts haven’t been in the business of doing this and shouldn’t be in the business of doing this.”

Brennan filed his lawsuit against the Trump administration in July, alleging selective and vindictive prosecution. His lawyers said he has a constitutional right to the documents because the investigative records would be critical to his defense should those inquiries yield an indictment.

Lawyers representing the former CIA director have highlighted Trump’s yearslong animus toward Brennan, beginning with the president’s revocation of his security clearance and culminating with the “drumbeat of calls for Brennan to be investigated” when Trump returned to office.

Brennan is the subject of two DOJ investigations . The first is the so-called grand conspiracy inquiry premised on the idea that intelligence officials orchestrated the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, among others, as part of a conspiracy to deprive the president of his civil rights.

The second investigation centers on allegedly false statements Brennan made to Congress in 2023.

Brennan has maintained he has done nothing wrong and has needed to go on the offensive to protect his reputation.

“I don’t want to sit on our hands because if he gets away with me, he’s going to do this against others — individuals, professionals who have given their lives and sacrificed so much for this country, believing that a president and administration is going to do the right thing, as opposed to the wrong thing and corrupt thing,” he told MS NOW in an interview shortly after he filed the lawsuit.

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