A federal judge on Thursday threw out former CIA Director John Brennan’s lawsuit demanding that the Justice Department preserve records in its broad investigation into claims that he and other national security officials conspired to undermine President Donald Trump.
U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb ruled that Brennan had raised “deeply concerning” allegations about being politically targeted by the Trump administration, but said he hadn’t shown that the Justice Department was failing to hold onto records that might help his defense against potential criminal charges.
“Instead, he is concerned that Defendants may not be complying with their preservation obligations based on the conduct of certain government officials in other cases,” Cobb wrote.
Brennan, the target of multiple federal probes, sued the Justice Department in July, seeking a court order requiring investigators to keep a broad range of records that he said he may need to defend himself.
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His lawsuit says he plans to contest any prosecution that arises from the DOJ’s probes as vindictive and selective and that internal records and communications will be critical in establishing that in court.
The former CIA director alleged that the president — who has repeatedly called for him to be investigated and charged — had singled him out in retaliation for his role in investigating the Trump campaign’s ties to the Russian government in 2016.
Cobb, an appointee of President Joe Biden, signaled that she took that aspect of Brennan’s case seriously, saying that “if he was eventually able to prove those allegations true, that would certainly suggest that his potential prosecution is vindictive.”
At this point, Brennan is not facing enough harm to establish he has a right to bring the lawsuit, the ruling says.
“Even taking all of Brennan’s allegations to be truthful at this stage,” the judge wrote, “the injury he alleges is simply too attenuated from the actions he seeks to enjoin to warrant a finding of standing here.”
Lawyers for Brennan didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The judge’s order grants a motion to dismiss by the government. DOJ lawyers argued that Brennan lacked standing to bring the lawsuit, calling his claims “speculative.” Brennan, they said in court papers, was asking the district court to take the “unprecedented step of managing potential discovery in a hypothetical future criminal case in Florida.”
Brennan contended in the complaint that the Trump administration’s alleged mishandling of records in other unrelated cases created a “very real risk” that he might not be able to access records that could be useful in a future defense.
He cited numerous examples, including the Justice Department’s alleged failure to retain records in its failed prosecution of another Trump adversary, New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Cobb said such allegations were “damnable and unbecoming of any officer of the federal government” but not connected to Brennan’s lawsuit.
“There is no allegation anywhere in the complaint from which the Court can draw the plausible inference that Defendants are actively failing to preserve records that would be relevant to Brennan’s vindictive- or selective-prosecution defenses, to the extent such records exist,” she wrote.
Brennan is among several Obama-era officials targeted by the Justice Department in a “grand conspiracy” investigation widely viewed as an attempt to exact vengeance on Trump’s perceived political enemies.
The effort, run out of south Florida, focuses on whether law enforcement and intelligence officials violated Trump’s civil rights through investigations that started with the Trump-Russia probe in 2016.
Brennan’s possible indictment has been rumored for months.
Last month, one of Brennan’s lawyers disclosed in court papers that a Trump administration official told him there were “multiple ‘viable’ grand jury investigations” underway, including “a ‘far-reaching’ investigation in Fort Pierce that includes ‘issues at Mar-a-Lago and beyond.’”
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