Biden-Appointed Judge Tosses John Brennan DOJ Lawsuit
Biden-appointed judge dismisses John Brennan’s lawsuit seeking to preserve DOJ investigation records, ruling his claims too speculative.
John Brennan went to court in July, wanting the Justice Department to save records from investigations involving him. His lawyers argued the material would be essential to challenging any future prosecution as politically motivated.
There was one problem. Nobody had charged him. Nobody had said they would, either.
Brennan sued anyway. On Thursday, Biden-appointed U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb dismissed the case. She is not exactly a Trump ally. Brennan hadn’t shown that DOJ was destroying evidence or that he faced any immediate harm.
His own lawyer admitted the request was unusual. But he argued that DOJ had already demonstrated its hostility toward Brennan and couldn’t be trusted to keep records that might help him challenge a future prosecution.
Cobb wasn’t buying it. Brennan’s suspicions, however strongly held, weren’t proof that anybody was deleting anything. And without an actual or imminent injury, there wasn’t much for a federal court to do.
“To have standing to seek forward-looking relief, a plaintiff must allege an injury that is ‘imminent,’ rather than one that is ‘conjectural or hypothetical.’”
She also called it “speculative whether Defendants are deleting records relevant to a future vindictive- or selective-prosecution defense.”
Brennan, meanwhile, still has the investigations to worry about.
One involves his 2023 testimony before the House Judiciary Committee and whether he made false statements. The other is a Florida-based investigation into whether former intelligence and law enforcement officials conspired to keep Donald Trump from power. Brennan received a grand jury subpoena in the latter case, though his appearance was postponed. Prosecutors also reportedly still consider him a target in the false-statements investigation, according to his attorneys.
He denies wrongdoing.
Following the dismissal, Brennan’s attorneys were quick to point out that Cobb hadn’t ruled on whether DOJ was targeting him for political reasons. The judge dismissed the lawsuit over standing. They also said the department had refused to promise it was preserving communications that could expose the thinking behind the investigations.
Cobb, however, wasn’t particularly charitable toward prosecutors in the rest of her opinion.
According to Brennan’s allegations, one investigator concluded the evidence against him was too weak to bring charges. Joseph diGenova, later tapped to head the broader investigation, reportedly resigned after questioning the ethics of pursuing indictments without evidence. Cobb included both episodes in her ruling.
“One might think that these statements would lead to the termination of the investigations. Instead, Brennan alleges, it has led to the termination of the investigators.”
Not exactly a ringing endorsement of the investigation.
But the judge’s misgivings didn’t give Brennan standing to sue. His attorneys have already promised to argue political retaliation if prosecutors indict him. DOJ hasn’t filed charges, and Brennan hasn’t established that investigators destroyed the records he’s worried about.
There was no criminal case for him to defend against Thursday. Just the possibility of one, and a court that wasn’t interested in helping him prepare for it.
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Comments
That’s about par for the course. Criminal judge and criminal Brennan.
Huh? What has the judge done wrong?
As for Brennan, I hope they do find enough evidence to charge him with something, but it seems they haven’t done so yet. I hope they haven’t given up, and will keep looking so long as the statute hasn’t run on anything he might have done. The guy is scum, but to charge him you have to be able to prove it.
The fact that, so far, 3 people have upvoted this incredibly stupid comment calling the judge a criminal, and four people have downvoted my comment asking what on earth the judge did wrong, shows how dishonest and ignorant so many of the commentariat here are. How could anyone object to my comment? Literally anyone? Even if you bizarrely think the judge did something wrong, you could explain what. But of course no one has any explanation, because it’s impossible to come up with anything. So these people are just vile dishonest characters.
“How could anyone object to my comment?”
Oh, but they do, quite often actually. Get over it, Milhouse.
Because they’re deeply dishonest and ignorant excuses for human beings. Worse than any Democrat.
Actually, downvotes are pretty mild compared to some of the brawls that used to take place here. Like Trump, you have detractors based, as you note, simply due to personal dislike. As you also note, they aren’t too bright. Ignore them and their downvotes, because reacting to them only encourages them. OTOH, you sometimes appear to take adversarial positions simply for the sake of argument, which does offend some people. One example is your input on the French riots..
So explain how these riots are different from the ’68 ones. They seem like the same thing to me, so they should be explained by their common factors, and not by a factor they don’t have in common.
Because the only thing that really matters is the difference, not the similarities, and that is Islam and its likely impending control of France.
Huh? That makes no sense. When the same thing happens twice, what matters is the common factors, not the differences. Any factor that’s present in one but not the other clearly isn’t the cause.
Be still, my beating heart.
A Biden judge actually follows [checks notes] the law???
Wowza.
Nothing remarkable about that. Almost all judges do follow the law, almost all the time.
You’re either catastrophically ignorant or willfully blind to the partisan judicial activism and ongoing legislating from the bench across the country.
Bullshit. You are full of shit. There is very little of that. The overwhelming number of judges are just like this one, making the obviously correct decision regardless of politics.
Like I said: catastrophically ignorant, or willfully blind. Whichever it is, we can always rely on you to completely miss the point of the argument and descend into non-sequitur and/or pedantic arguments.
You reliably argue for the end of our Constitutional Republic, but I’m sure you don’t see it that way.
You are catastrophically ignorant and simply make things up. And you reliably argue for throwing the constitution into the garbage. In which case why bother having a USA? If we toss the constitution then the USA will deserve to be overthrown.
A new form of lawfare. Or maybe an old one. Just do an investigation. Better yet just announce your investigating and do nothing. The person threatened with an investigation or possible investigation lawyers up and wastes time and money over a fear something might happen,
If that’s what’s happening it’s wrong, but it couldn’t happen to a nicer person. He’s the one person from the 0bama administration I would most like to see behind bars, if that’s at all possible.
Not her job to endorse the investigation. Brennan can obfuscate and try to create doubt, but most anyone that has followed the saga knows he is up to his ears. A dirty player among many.
Brennan should be put in front of a firing squad for high treason,
It would be nice to have some evidence first that he adhered to the cause of an enemy of the USA, and as a result of that adherence performed an overt act giving that enemy aid and comfort. Preferably enough to prove it beyond reasonable doubt.
Mind you I’m not saying he didn’t do that. Just that I’m not aware of a specific instance that can be proven. If you can prove it, more power to you.
But I thought from their history that democrats loved the destruction of evidence, especially when it has been subpoenaed.
Hilldog Clinton and Schiffhead’s J6 committee set the standard.
He is convinced, like Barky, he is on the ‘right’ side of the history thats coming.
The prologue to the Jack Smith prosecution?
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