Brennan Subpoenaed to Fort Pierce Grand Jury as Lead Prosecutor Quits Same Day

Former CIA Director John Brennan has been ordered to appear before a federal grand jury in Fort Pierce, Florida, on October 15, according to a court filing disclosed Monday by his attorney, Ken Wainstein. The subpoena is part of what's informally called the "grand conspiracy" investigation, a Justice Department probe into whether officials who investigated President Trump over the past decade, from the 2016 Russia interference assessment to the Mar-a-Lago documents case, coordinated to violate his civil rights.

No charges have been filed against Brennan or anyone else in this investigation. That distinction matters. Prosecutor Kurt Olsen told Wainstein that Brennan is currently a "subject" of the Fort Pierce probe, not a "target" — DOJ terminology meaning his conduct is within scope but prosecutors haven't yet concluded there's evidence tying him to a crime, according to CBS News. Separately, Olsen confirmed Brennan remains an active "target" in a Washington-based investigation into whether he lied to Congress in 2023 about the origins of the intelligence community's Russia assessment. Brennan and his lawyers have consistently denied that.

The timing is notable. The subpoena was delivered last Thursday, the same day Joe diGenova — the prosecutor who had been leading the grand conspiracy investigation — abruptly resigned from the Justice Department. A person familiar with the matter told the Associated Press the resignation followed disagreements between DOJ and White House officials over the pace and management of the probe. DiGenova confirmed his resignation to CBS News but declined to explain why. The department has not named a replacement.

Fort Pierce is the home turf of U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, the Trump appointee who dismissed the classified-documents case against Trump in 2024. Wainstein's filing noted that connection and cited what he called "judge-shopping" by prosecutors as part of a broader argument that the investigation is being steered rather than pursued neutrally.

Brennan's lawyers call it retaliation, DOJ hasn't said otherwise

Wainstein made his case Monday to U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb in Washington, arguing for a preliminary injunction that would force DOJ to preserve all records tied to the investigations targeting Brennan. He called the situation unprecedented. "I've spent decades in and around the Justice Department. I've never even conceived of a situation like this," Wainstein said, according to the Associated Press, accusing the department of "blatantly trying to frame somebody for a crime that is complete fiction" and describing "a lot of really underhanded stuff going on."

Those are Wainstein's characterizations, made in active litigation on behalf of his client, not findings by any court. The Justice Department has not publicly responded to the specific claims of vindictive or selective prosecution, and no judge has ruled on them. Judge Cobb has not yet decided whether to grant the preservation order.

The underlying premise of the investigation is not itself fringe. Declassified records reviewed by CIA Director John Ratcliffe raised questions about how the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment on Russian interference was assembled, including the handling of the Steele dossier, and Ratcliffe referred Brennan for investigation on that basis, according to the Daily Wire. If intelligence and law enforcement officials genuinely coordinated to target a political figure using flawed or politically sourced material, that is a legitimate subject for investigators to examine regardless of who sits in the Oval Office. The question the courts haven't answered is whether that's what actually happened here, or whether this is retaliation dressed up as an investigation.

Both things can be true in the eyes of critics: the underlying grievance about 2016-era intelligence conduct can be legitimate, and the current probe's execution, a resigning lead prosecutor, subpoenas issued and withdrawn, a case venued in front of a judge friendly to Trump's prior case, can also raise real process concerns. Wainstein is leaning hard on the latter. DOJ hasn't offered a public rebuttal.

Kurt Olsen, the prosecutor now fielding Brennan's team's questions, is himself a notable figure in this story. He's the lawyer who unsuccessfully pushed DOJ in 2020 to back Trump's false claims that the election had been stolen, according to the Associated Press. That history doesn't establish anything about the merits of the current probe, but it's part of the public record on who's running it.

Brennan is due in Fort Pierce on October 15. Judge Cobb has not set a date for ruling on the preservation motion. Whether Olsen's investigation ever produces an indictment, or whether it collapses the way the spring subpoenas in the false-statements case did when they were withdrawn for voluntary interviews, remains an open question with no clear timeline attached to it.