Former CIA Director John Brennan has been subpoenaed to testify before a Florida grand jury as part of a Justice Department investigation into whether former law enforcement and intelligence officials conspired to deprive President Donald Trump of his civil rights.
According to the Associated Press, Ken Wainstein — Brennan’s attorney — disclosed the subpoena Monday in a court filing, saying prosecutors presented it to his legal team last Thursday. Brennan has been ordered to appear October 15 before a grand jury in Fort Pierce, Florida.
Wainstein said the subpoena is part of a wide-ranging investigation into the government officials who investigated Trump over the past decade, including officials involved in the investigation of alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and the later investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence.
The investigation, informally referred to as the “grand conspiracy” probe, is examining whether officials involved in those investigations coordinated in a way that violated Trump’s civil rights. The Florida investigation has not yet produced criminal charges against Brennan or the other officials under scrutiny.
Brennan’s subpoena comes as the investigation undergoes a shakeup. Joe diGenova, the prosecutor who had been overseeing the broader investigation, resigned from the Justice Department the same day the subpoena was delivered.
A person familiar with the matter told the AP that diGenova’s departure followed reported disagreements over the pace and management of the probe. The Justice Department has not publicly announced a replacement.
Wainstein also said prosecutor Kurt Olsen informed him that Brennan remains a target in a separate Washington-based investigation into whether he made false statements to Congress during 2023 testimony. Brennan and his attorneys have repeatedly denied that he lied to Congress.
Prosecutors issued grand jury subpoenas seeking Brennan’s testimony in the spring but later withdrew them in favor of voluntary interviews. The newly issued subpoena now puts Brennan under compelled testimony in the broader Florida investigation. The two investigations are legally distinct.
Brennan served as CIA director from 2013 to 2017, including during the period when U.S. intelligence agencies proclaimed that Russia had interfered in the 2016 presidential election.
The Trump administration has spent months scrutinizing the origins and handling of that assessment. CIA Director John Ratcliffe previously referred Brennan for investigation after declassified records raised questions about the process behind the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment, including the handling of information from the controversial Steele dossier.
Brennan has defended the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 election and has denied wrongdoing. The broader Justice Department investigation has also examined officials involved in other investigations of Trump, including the federal investigation that resulted in the 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago.
The investigation has become politically contentious, particularly because some of the officials now under scrutiny were involved in investigations that Trump and his allies have long characterized as politically motivated.
At the same time, previous investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election reached different conclusions about different aspects of the matter. The Mueller investigation, for example, could not establish that the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election-interference activities. The current Justice Department investigation is examining a separate question: whether U.S. officials themselves unlawfully conspired against Trump.
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