Fox News raised a few eyebrows Tuesday night with an unexpected report: Former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey, the network said, are facing criminal investigations from Donald Trump’s Justice Department. Another conservative media outlet, The Washington Times, published a similar report soon after.
Asked about the reporting, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt didn’t confirm the investigations, but the president’s chief spokesperson cheered the news during a Fox News appearance, calling Comey and Brennan “disgraceful individuals” who “lied to Congress.” Leavitt said she’s “glad to hear it,” referencing the reporting on the probes, and added that “the truth must come out. … That’s what the president believes in.”
And while those comments were difficult to take seriously, given Trump’s record of breathtaking dishonesty, the underlying issue is apparently quite real. NBC News reported:
The Trump administration has put two repeated targets of President Donald Trump under criminal investigation, although details of what exactly they are being investigated for or how far the Justice Department intends on taking the probes are unclear. [Brennan and Comey] are facing criminal investigations, according to a statement that a Justice Department spokesperson provided to reporters.
Comey did not respond to a request for comment. Brennan, who is a paid contributor to MSNBC and NBC News, had no immediate comment. The FBI declined to comment.
Time will tell what, if anything, comes of these investigations, and it’s worth emphasizing that criminal probes often don’t lead to criminal charges.
But let’s not miss the forest for the trees: Brennan and Comey have long been targets, not just of the president’s far-right base — both men appeared, for example, on FBI Director Kash Patel’s so-called enemies list, filled with those he identified as “government gangsters” — but also of the president himself.
What’s more, they join a long and growing list.
In April, for example, Trump signed two first-of-their-kind executive orders targeting a pair of officials from his first term who defied him. There was barely a pretense in the orders that the targeted former officials — Christopher Krebs, who led the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and Miles Taylor, a former high-ranking Department of Homeland Security official — had done anything wrong. Indeed, the closer one looked at the stated rationales in support of the directives, the more ridiculous they appeared.
Nevertheless, the president directed Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Department of Homeland Security to launch a “review” into Krebs, while simultaneously ordering DHS to investigate Taylor.
Weeks later, Trump broke new ground again, directing the Justice Department to launch a wide-ranging investigation into Joe Biden and officials in the Democrat’s administration, based on Republican conspiracy theories about the former president’s mental health. It was an unprecedented move: An incumbent American president had never before publicly ordered a federal probe of his predecessor.
There was a degree of irony to the circumstances. After his defeat in the 2020 election, Trump spent years insisting that Biden had ordered an investigation into him — an odd conspiracy theory for which there is literally no evidence — but Trump then did exactly what he falsely accused his predecessor of doing. Trump also endorsed California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s arrest, before demanding that CNN face criminal prosecution for running reports the White House didn’t like. And did I mention that, over the last several weeks, a Democratic mayor, a Democratic U.S. House member, the staffer of a different Democratic U.S. House member, a sitting judge and a labor leader have all been criminally charged, detained or taken into custody by Trump administration officials? Because that happened, too. There are also ongoing Trump administration investigations into Media Matters, ActBlue, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, New York Attorney General Letitia James and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy. Axios recently reported, “In the final days of the 2024 campaign, Axios identified a list of perceived adversaries who fit what Trump ominously described as ‘the enemies from within.’ As president, he has taken steps to retaliate against virtually all of them.” That was four months ago. The problem is vastly worse now, and there’s no reason to believe conditions will improve anytime soon.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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