“We are no longer in a normal time”: Ex-CIA boss claims rigged probe, wants judge who saved Trump blocked
Florida – Former C.I.A. Director John O. Brennan has asked the chief judge of a federal court to weigh in because he thinks the Justice Department is trying to steer a politically sensitive investigation to a Florida judge seen as favorable to President Donald Trump.
Brennan’s lawyer wrote a long letter to Chief Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida on Monday, asking the court to stop prosecutors from putting the case in front of Judge Aileen M. Cannon. During the now-dismissed prosecution of Trump for classified documents, Cannon made decisions that helped him.
The request is unusual because chief judges don’t often stop other judges from handling a case. Kenneth L. Wainstein, Brennan’s lawyer, said that the scenario called for intervention since the department seemed ready to use court assignment rules to get the result they wanted. He said that the supposed maneuvering was against the rules of prosecutorial ethics and put the impartiality of the process at risk.
The letter says that prosecutors were trying to send the probe to the Fort Pierce division of the court, where Cannon is the only judge and automatically oversees any grand jury convened there. Wainstein said that Cannon’s past handling of cases involving Trump revealed a trend that made him extremely concerned about her ability to be fair in any case involving Trump’s perceived political opponents.
Credit: Wikipedia
Both Judge Altonaga and Judge Cannon refused to comment, and the Justice Department did not publicly reply to the claims.
The investigation is primarily about what intelligence officers did in the latter days of the Obama administration. U.S. Attorney Jason Reding Quiñones and other prosecutors in Miami have sent subpoenas to former officials who were involved in a January 2017 intelligence report that said Russia wanted to help Trump win the 2016 election. At least for now, Brennan, who was in charge of that assessment, seems to be the main focus.
Brennan’s lawyers say that the investigation is politically motivated and not based on facts. Wainstein said he wanted to make the letter public to show what he called strange behavior that was happening behind the closed doors of the grand jury process. He said that prosecutors who were close to Trump were utilizing the lack of information to push a larger campaign against those who were critical of the administration.
The letter says that this larger effort is in line with a story pushed by Trump’s backers that links prior investigations into Trump to a single “deep state” conspiracy. In the past, an inspector general and a special counsel looked into the Russia investigation and found no reason to indict senior officials. However, during his second term, Trump has openly told the Justice Department to go after his enemies.
Wainstein said that most of the occurrences being looked into happened a long time ago and mostly in Washington, D.C., which would ordinarily bring up difficulties with the statute of limitations and the venue. But if the investigation is connected to the FBI’s 2022 search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property, it might provide South Florida jurisdiction and allow the case to move forward.
The judge in charge of a grand jury has a lot of power, such as the ability to revoke subpoenas or force people to testify. Wainstein said it would be wrong to let Cannon play this role, especially since she was already involved in Trump’s documents case and could become a witness herself if that case is linked to a larger conspiracy theory.
He added his intervention wouldn’t be needed if the prosecutors promised to keep the case out of Fort Pierce in public. He asked the top judge to act to defend Brennan’s rights, protect young prosecutors, and uphold the integrity of the courts without such guarantees.
“We are no longer in a normal time,” Wainstein wrote, arguing that political pressure on federal prosecutors has eroded the traditional presumption that their actions are impartial and lawful.
