Politics

FLASHBACK: John Brennan Predicted Additional Mueller Indictments Just Two Weeks Ago

Director_Robert_S._Mueller | Circa March 2011 | By Federal Bureau of Investigation (http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/executives) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Former Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan predicted just two short weeks ago that President Trump’s family members or associates would be indicted in the special counsel’s probe.

During an appearance on MSNBC on March 5, Brennan predicted that Mueller would issue indictments related to a “criminal conspiracy” involving Trump or his associates’ activities during the 2016 election. The forecast proved far off the mark on Friday after Robert Mueller ended his investigation without issuing new indictments.

“If anybody from the Trump family … is going to be indicted, it would be in the final act of Mueller’s investigation because Bob Mueller and I think his team knows that if he were to do something, indicting a Trump family member, or if he were to go forward with an indictment on a criminal conspiracy involving U.S. persons that would basically be the death knell of the special counsel’s office,” Brennan told anchor Lawrence O’Donnell.

“I don’t believe that Donald Trump would allow Bob Mueller to continue in the aftermath of those actions,” he added.

Brennan’s pipe dream was all but obliterated on Friday when Mueller submitted his report to the Justice Department. Officials at the agency said that no more indictments will be submitted in the 22-month old investigation. There are also no indictments that have been issued under seal. The last indictment in the investigation was handed down on Jan. 24 against Trump confidant Roger Stone.

Of the three dozen indictments or guilty pleas obtained in the investigation, none have involved charges of conspiracy between Trump associates and Russian government officials.

It does remain unclear whether Mueller recommended Trump for impeachment proceedings, or whether he found non-criminal evidence of links between Trumpworld and the Kremlin. Attorney General William Barr said in a letter Friday afternoon that he will likely provide a summary of the investigation to the Houe and Senate Judiciary Committees as soon as this weekend.

Brennan, an outspoken critic of Trump, has stoked much of the speculation about the Trump investigation, which has centered on possible collusion between the campaign and Russia.

Brennan said that he believed at the time he was in CIA that “there was going to be individuals that were going to have issues with the Department of Justice.”

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