On October 21, 2025, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan formally referred former CIA Director John Brennan to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution, alleging Brennan lied to Congress about the agency’s handling of the debunked Steele dossier. The committee’s press release says the referral follows a transcribed interview from May 11, 2023 and cites what lawmakers describe as clear contradictions between Brennan’s testimony and recently declassified records.
Jordan’s referral accuses Brennan of making “willfully and intentionally false statements of material fact,” including denials that the CIA relied on or supported including the Steele dossier in the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment. Republicans on the committee point to declassified documents they say show CIA personnel drafted an annex summarizing the dossier and that Brennan approved its inclusion despite internal objections. This is the kind of concealment and double-speak that fundamentally undermines trust in our intelligence institutions.
Conservative investigators and commentators believe this is not merely an academic dispute over wording; it is about whether senior officials misled Congress to push a politically charged narrative that targeted a duly elected president. The referral invokes federal law on false statements to Congress and urges the DOJ to investigate whether criminal charges are warranted. If the facts alleged by Jordan’s team are true, then the DOJ has an obligation to pursue accountability without fear or favor.
Critics will call this politics, but the evidence released to Congress in recent months has forced the question of whether Washington’s security bureaucracy was weaponized for political ends. Reports indicate the FBI and other entities have been looking into related conduct, and Brennan has previously faced scrutiny over his role in the post-2016 intelligence narrative. Americans have the right to demand that those who operate in secrecy answer for deception when it occurs.
Brennan himself has publicly denied knowledge of any DOJ contact and has characterized these probes as politically motivated, a familiar line from officials under scrutiny. Denials are to be expected, but denials alone cannot be the final word when contemporaneous documents and witness accounts say otherwise. The rule of law means no one is above investigation, and no one should be shielded because they once wore a badge or led an agency.
Legally, the referral points to 18 U.S.C. §1001, the statute prohibiting knowingly false statements to Congress, which carries real penalties when violations are proven. Whether the DOJ will pursue charges and whether a jury would convict are separate questions that require evidence, due process, and a prosecutor willing to take on entrenched deep-state figures. Conservatives should insist on a thorough, transparent process that either clears Brennan or holds him accountable.
This episode is a test of whether Washington will finally confront the arrogance of intelligence elites who acted with impunity for years. If prosecutors decline to act despite what the committee calls substantial evidence, it will confirm too many Americans’ worst suspicions about a two-tier system of justice. The right response is simple: let the facts lead, let judges and juries decide, and let accountability be blind to titles and pedigree.
