House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) has officially referred former CIA Director John Brennan to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution, citing “significant evidence” that Brennan lied under oath to Congress about his role in pushing the discredited Steele dossier during the 2016 Trump-Russia investigation.
In a referral letter sent Tuesday to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Jordan alleges that Brennan made “numerous willfully and intentionally false statements” during a May 11, 2023 hearing before the Judiciary Committee. The core issue? Brennan’s repeated denials that the CIA had any hand in incorporating Christopher Steele’s debunked opposition research into an Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) ordered by President Obama to examine Russian election interference.
“John Brennan lied to Congress,” Jordan wrote bluntly in a post on X. “Today, we referred him to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution.”
Brennan’s sworn testimony before Congress painted a picture of a CIA that wanted nothing to do with the Steele dossier. “The CIA was very much opposed to having any reference or inclusion of the Steele dossier in the Intelligence Community Assessment,” Brennan claimed.
But Jordan says that narrative doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.
Documents declassified by the Trump administration, including internal CIA memos, tell a very different story—one where Brennan not only supported the dossier’s inclusion in the ICA but actively overrode internal objections.
According to one such memo, senior CIA officials raised “specific flaws” with the dossier’s content. Yet Brennan appeared “more swayed by the [d]ossier’s general conformity with existing theories than by legitimate tradecraft concerns.” In fact, Brennan formalized his position in writing, stating that “my bottomline is that I believe that the information warrants inclusion in the report.”
He even refused to remove it after being presented with evidence of the dossier’s “many flaws.” When challenged, Brennan’s reported response was: “Yes, but doesn’t it ring true?”—a stunning admission that ideological bias may have trumped intelligence standards.
Jordan’s letter goes on to dismantle Brennan’s claim that the CIA had no role whatsoever with the Steele dossier. Brennan testified in 2023: “The CIA was not involved at all with the [Steele] dossier.” But newly declassified House Intelligence Committee (HPSCI) reports say otherwise.
A senior FBI analyst confirmed that the CIA and FBI leadership jointly decided to include elements of the dossier in the final ICA after days of deliberation. “Upper levels [at FBI and CIA] decided to put it in,” the analyst told HPSCI.
In other words, Brennan’s insistence that the CIA stayed out of the Steele dossier saga is contradicted by multiple documented sources—including his own directives.
“Brennan’s assertion that the CIA was not ‘involved at all’ with the Steele dossier cannot be reconciled with the facts,” Jordan concluded.
Jordan’s referral also highlights Brennan’s 2017 testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, where he gave similar denials about the CIA’s involvement with the dossier. Though those statements fall outside the five-year statute of limitations, Jordan says they demonstrate a clear “pattern of Brennan’s willingness to lie to Congress.”
This marks at least the third criminal referral tied to Brennan’s role in shaping post-2016 election narratives. Earlier this year, both CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard made similar referrals. And in July, the FBI launched a criminal investigation into Brennan’s conduct.
