Turley: John Brennan Is the Most Vulnerable – ‘Like a 30-Point Buck in the Open’

Turley: John Brennan Is the Most Vulnerable – ‘Like a 30-Point Buck in the Open’

Five years ago, Politico’s Jack Schafer penned an article titled, “Media Is Under No Obligation to Listen to Trump’s Allegations: How Not to Listen to Donald Trump.” In the piece, he dared conservatives to “Show me one shred of evidence of Obama administration wrongdoing or ‘I’m going back to bed.'”

Incensed, I rattled off a 3,500-word rebuttal — about five to seven times the length of a typical blog post — which began, “You better wake the #&%$ up, Jack.”

It took a long time, but thanks to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s release of long-buried documents last week, the subversive and contemptible actions of former President Barack Obama and senior members of his cabinet have finally been exposed to the world.

Weighing in on the growing scandal, George Washington University Law School professor Jonathan Turley sees former CIA Director John Brennan as the most vulnerable of the officials implicated by the documents. While last year’s Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity may shield Obama from legal jeopardy, the same cannot be said for Brennan or former FBI Director James Comey.

Turley said:

[I]t does appear that a couple of these figures may have committed perjury.

I think the most vulnerable may be Brennan, who’s like a 30-point buck now out in the open. I mean, this stuff goes directly to information that he gave to Congress. It seems to be in contradiction. And so there are real questions here. I mean, people talk about, well, you can’t charge Obama. That’s very likely the case. He’s probably protected. But these individuals, whether it’s Comey or Brennan, are not protected from perjury charges if the statute of limitations has not run. They are more likely to be called again to repeat prior testimony.

Turley: Brennan Is The Most Vulnerable Person For Perjury Charges, Like A "30-Point Buck Now Out In The Open"https://t.co/JVxC6KXGDv

— RCP Video (@rcpvideo) July 24, 2025

During a May 23, 2017, House Intelligence Committee hearing on Russian interference in the 2016 election, Brennan told lawmakers he did not approve of including the “Steele dossier” in the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment on Russian interference in the 2016 election. But new documents show that not only did he approve, he insisted upon its inclusion.

We learned about Brennan’s determination to include the Steele dossier in the ICA from a report released earlier this month by CIA Director John Ratcliffe.

The CIA conducted a “lessons-learned” review of the ICA this spring, which I wrote about here.

According to the review, “the ICA authors and multiple senior CIA managers — including the two senior leaders of the CIA mission center responsible for Russia — strongly opposed including the Dossier, asserting that it did not meet even the most basic tradecraft standards. … CIA’s Deputy Director for Analysis (DDA) warned in an email to Brennan on December 29 that including it in any form risked ‘the credibility of the entire paper.’”

Still Brennan insisted on including it. His response? “My bottom line is that I believe that the information warrants inclusion in the report.”

The FBI also fought for the dossier’s inclusion. The review stated: “FBI leadership made it clear that their participation in the ICA hinged on the Dossier’s inclusion and, over the next few days, repeatedly pushed to weave references to it throughout the main body of the ICA.”

In the end, a compromise was reached. A two-page summary of the dossier was added as an “annex” to the ICA with a disclaimer that it was not used “to reach the analytic conclusions.”

Brennan will be called upon to explain this disconnect to Justice Department investigators — particularly since he knew as early as July 2016 that the dossier was nothing more than a fictitious collection of stories — opposition research commissioned by the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign.

We know this because in October 2020, Fox News obtained a page of Brennan’s handwritten notes from a July 28, 2016, Oval Office meeting. Brennan had briefed Obama and others present on “Hillary Clinton’s purported ‘plan’ to tie then-candidate Donald Trump to Russia as ‘a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server’ ahead of the 2016 presidential election.”

I hope Brennan will be more willing to cooperate now than he was back in May 2017. Asked by then-Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) during the hearing, “When you learned of Russian efforts, did you have evidence of a connection between the Trump campaign and Russian state actors?”

Brennan famously replied, “As I said, Mr. Gowdy, I don’t do evidence.”

He certainly won’t get away with that level of arrogance now.

Back to Schafer:

Day after day, he [Trump] fills the air with the ack-ack of disinformation and misdirection, needlessly alarming the public and sending reporters on wild goose chases to either confirm or disprove his allegations.

Now it could be that Obama did commit the biggest political crime in the history of the USA. If there’s a shred of evidence, I want Obama investigated. If the investigation bears fruit, I want him to have a fair trial. If he’s found guilty, I want him punished. But show me that shred of evidence first or I’m going back to bed.

Trump has achieved something no president before him has. By his own energies, he has forfeited the automatic right to our investigative attention. Feel free to listen to his indictments, but don’t be a dupe. Use just one ear.

Send charges of criminal wrong-doing to [email protected]. My email alerts commit treason against my Twitter feed almost daily. My RSS feed breaks only god’s laws.

Here’s your wake-up call, Jack.

Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.

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