Ex-CIA Director John Brennan sues the Trump administration, demanding it preserve records of investigations into him

By — Eric Tucker, Associated Press Eric Tucker, Associated Press Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/ex-cia-director-john-brennan-sues-the-trump-administration-demanding-it-preserve-records-of-investigations-into-him Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Ex-CIA Director John Brennan sues the Trump administration, demanding it preserve records of investigations into him Politics Jul 1, 2026 4:57 PM EDT 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 it constitutes a vindictive prosecution. Educate your inbox Subscribe to Here’s the Deal, our politics newsletter for analysis you won’t find anywhere else. 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. As well as by the Republican president's directives to his Department of Justice 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. READ MORE: AP sources: Witnesses subpoenaed to testify before D.C. grand jury in John Brennan investigation 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 prosecution 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