DOJ 'vendetta' threatens to backfire by arming Trump's foes: legal expert

A Department of Justice prosecutor's "vendetta" against a former CIA director threatens to backfire and arm President Donald Trump's foes, a legal expert argued.

All Rise News legal analyst Adam Klasfeld flagged on Saturday a new federal court motion from former CIA Director John Brennan, the target of the "grand conspiracy" probe into the FBI's 2016 Trump-Russia investigation, which Trump calls illegitimate.

Brennan asked a Washington, D.C. judge to force the Justice department to preserve internal records ahead of what his attorneys call a "constitutionally vindictive and selective" prosecution, according to Klasfeld.

If a judge grants Brennan's request, the same defense reaches every target named in the probe, including James Comey, James Clapper, and Joe Biden, the analyst said.

Klasfeld noted that the request is narrow but the DOJ's refusal to simply agree to it is revealing.

"The Trump Justice Department's resistance to this shows how much court intervention is needed," Klasfeld said. Brennan's filing, his team wrote, "seeks nothing more than to ensure that the government does what is already obligated to do."

Klasfeld argues Brennan calls the outcome "preordained" because the prosecutor, Joe diGenova, has spent nearly a decade attacking him. DiGenova is now running the grand-conspiracy investigation against Brennan in the Southern District of Florida.

"The man who is leading the investigation against him has been on the attack against him," Klasfeld said. "He's called him a traitor. He has called Brennan evil. And he has been salivating at the prospect of putting John Brennan behind bars."

DiGenova's record of attacking Brennan is on tape, Klasfeld said. In 2018, diGenova told Fox News that "criminal referrals have already been made" and that Brennan should "get himself a good lawyer." Months later, diGenova said flatly that "Brennan is a traitor."

Klasfeld calls Attorney General Todd Blanche's dismissal of any conflict "an absurd lie" and noted, "serious prosecutors do not mouth off on Rudy Giuliani podcasts and on cable news about the people they really would like to see in jail."

It marks "an aberrant departure" from how prosecution works, and that defense against the DOJ could arm Brennan and every other target with the internal evidence needed to fight the charges, Klasfeld said.