Former top intelligence officials John Brennan and James Clapper are again defending their handling of the 2016 Russia investigation, calling fresh allegations of misconduct from the Trump administration “patently false,” even as critics point to their past conduct as evidence of politicization.
In a guest essay published by The New York Times, Brennan, former CIA director and Clapper, former director of national intelligence, said claims by President Donald Trump, current CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard — who have alleged the Obama-era officials engaged in a “treasonous conspiracy” — are unfounded.
“Despite claims by Trump administration officials of a nefarious political conspiracy, we did everything we could at the time to prevent leaks of intelligence reports, including Russia’s preference for Mr. Trump,” the pair wrote. They argued that “every serious review has substantiated the intelligence community’s fundamental conclusion that the Russians conducted an influence campaign intended to help Mr. Trump win the 2016 election.”
But Brennan and Clapper’s critics, including the president himself, say their track record undercuts their claims of neutrality. President Trump, in a recent interview with The New York Post’s Miranda Devine, cited internal memos and directives — reportedly declassified by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence — as evidence that the Russia narrative was fabricated to damage his presidency.
“It was treason. They made up all these stories, just fake stories… and hurt the country and put the country in danger,” Trump said. “Obama, what he did was terrible. What [John] Brennan did, and [James] Clapper, and [James] Comey… they’re stupid people, actually. But what they did, and so unnecessary, and they made it really hard.”
The dispute is the latest flashpoint in a long-running and polarizing debate over the 2016 election, foreign interference, and the role of the U.S. intelligence community. Gabbard, a former Democratic presidential candidate turned top intelligence official, has accused the Obama administration of promoting a “contrived narrative” about Russian interference in order to justify the now-discredited Trump-Russia collusion probe.
Fox News, citing administration officials, has reported that internal documents support Gabbard’s view, though critics caution that the materials remain classified and open to interpretation. Brennan and Clapper countered that their assessment “made no judgment about the impact of Russian information operations on the outcome of the election” and was not influenced by political pressure.
They also addressed the controversial Steele dossier, which critics say shaped the early Trump-Russia narrative. “The dossier was not used as a source or taken into account for any of its analysis or conclusions,” Brennan and Clapper wrote. A short summary of the dossier was included “only to the most highly classified version of the document” and “explained why the dossier was not used in the assessment.”
These minimizing statements appear to be at odds with Brennan’s reported insistence that the dossier be in the intelligence assessment Obama had requested, according to the newly declassified material.
Still, the Steele dossier’s presence in classified materials, along with the pair’s public statements and media appearances throughout Trump’s presidency, has fueled ongoing skepticism. In 2020, both Brennan and Clapper signed a now-infamous letter dismissing the Hunter Biden laptop story, originally published by The New York Post, as having “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” That claim, also made in the run-up to a national election, was later undermined as major news outlets verified key elements of the laptop’s contents.
Clapper later said he regretted how the letter was “distorted” by the press and Brennan made concurrent statements.
The authenticity of the laptop is now largely undisputed, including by the young Biden’s legal counsel.
Trump and his allies have pointed to the letter as further evidence of political bias by Obama-era intelligence officials. “These are low lives. These are—these are losers,” Trump said on Pod Force One. “I’ve been beating them for 10 years.”
As the current administration weighs further investigations, Clapper insist their actions were motivated by national security, not politics. “We find it deeply regrettable that the administration continues to perpetuate the fictitious narrative that Russia did not interfere in the 2016 election,” they wrote. “It should instead acknowledge that a foreign nation-state — a mortal enemy of the United States — routinely meddles in our national elections and will continue to do so unless we take appropriate bipartisan action to stop it.”
Both men said they were writing in their personal capacities and that their views did not reflect the endorsement of any federal agency.
Attorney General Pam Bondi has not announced any possible prosecutorial plans or decisions.