FBI launches probes into former FBI, CIA directors, Fox News reports
The FBI has launched criminal probes into former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey, Fox News Digital reported on Tuesday, citing sources.
The probes are over alleged wrongdoing related to past government investigations about claims of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections in which President Donald Trump defeated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the news report said.
The CIA and the Justice Department had no immediate comment. The FBI declined to comment. Reuters has not independently verified the probes.
The scope of the criminal investigations into Brennan and Comey was unclear, the report added. Trump-nominated CIA Director John Ratcliffe referred Brennan, who served in that role under former Democratic President Barack Obama, for potential prosecution, according to the report.
A criminal investigation does not necessarily result in charges. Brennan did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Comey could not immediately be reached.
Fox said its sources were from the Justice Department but did not specify the number of sources.
"I am glad to see that the Department of Justice is opening up this investigation," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News' "Jesse Watters Primetime" show in an interview.
The probes reportedly target two former officials who have long drawn the ire of Trump and his supporters for their role in investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Comey led the FBI when authorities began a criminal investigation in 2016 into potential coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russian government to influence the election. Trump fired Comey in 2017 early in his first term after Comey publicly confirmed Trump was under investigation.
The probe was then taken over by former Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who found no evidence of a criminal conspiracy between Trump's 2016 campaign and Russia.
Trump railed against the investigation for years and has repeatedly dismissed it as the "Russia hoax."
Brennan led the CIA when U.S. intelligence assessed, in a report made public in January 2017, that Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to sway the 2016 U.S. vote in favor of Trump.
A CIA review released last week found flaws in the preparation of the 2017 assessment, but it did not contest its underlying conclusion.
The Fox News report on the investigations broke as Trump's top officials at the FBI and Justice Department faced online criticism from some Trump supporters for concluding that there was no evidence to support long-held conspiracy theories about the death of accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
During Trump's first term, the Justice Department appointed a separate special counsel, John Durham, to examine any missteps in the FBI's Russia investigation. Durham brought charges against three lower-level figures who worked on the probe or provided information to investigators, but did not find evidence of a conspiracy to target Trump.
© Thomson Reuters 2025.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Japan Today
3 minutes ago
- Japan Today
Trump says Japan will invest $550 billion in US at his direction. It may not be a sure thing
A staff member distributes an extra edition of the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reporting that President Donald Trump announced a trade framework with Japan on Tuesday, Wednesday, July 23, 2025, in Tokyo. The headline reads "U.S., a 15% tax on goods imported from Japan." (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko) By JOSH BOAK and MARI YAMAGUCHI President Donald Trump is bragging that Japan has given him, as part of a new trade framework, $550 billion to invest in the United States. It's an astonishing figure, but still subject to negotiation and perhaps not the sure thing he's portraying. "Japan is putting up $550 billion in order to lower their tariffs a little bit," Trump said Thursday. 'They put up, as you could call it, seed money. Let's call it seed money.' He said 90% of any profits from the money invested would go to the U.S. even if Japan had put up the funds. 'It's not a loan or anything, it's a signing bonus,' the Republican president said, on the trade framework that lowered his threatened tariff from 25% to 15%, including on autos. A White House official said the terms are being negotiated and nothing has been formalized in writing. The official, who insisted on anonymity to detail the terms of the talks, suggested the goal was for the $550 billion fund to make investments at Trump's direction. The sum is significant: It would represent more than 10% of Japan's entire gross domestic product. The Japan External Trade Organization estimates that direct investment into the U.S. economy topped $780 billion in 2023. It is unclear the degree to which the $550 billion could represent new investment or flow into existing investment plans. What the trade framework announced Tuesday has achieved is a major talking point for the Trump administration. The president has claimed to have brought trillions of dollars in new investment into the U.S., though the impact of those commitments have yet to appear in the economic data for jobs, construction spending or manufacturing output. The framework also enabled Trump to say other countries are agreeing to have their goods taxed, even if some of the cost of those taxes are ultimately passed along to U.S. consumers. On the $550 billion, Japan's Cabinet Office said it involves the credit facility of state-affiliated financial institutions, such as Japan Bank for International Cooperation. Further details would be decided based on the progress of the investment deals. Japanese trade negotiator Ryosei Akazawa, upon returning to Japan, did not discuss the terms of the $550 billion investment. Akazawa said he believes a written joint statement is necessary, at least on working levels, to avoid differences. He is not thinking about a legally binding trade pact. The U.S. apparently released its version of the deal while Japanese officials were on their return flight home. 'If we find differences of understanding, we may have to point them out and say 'that's not what we discussed,'' Akazawa said. The U.S. administration said the fund would be invested in critical minerals, pharmaceuticals, computer chips and shipbuilding, among other industries. It has said Japan will also buy 100 airplanes from Boeing and rice from U.S. farmers as part of the framework, which Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said would be evaluated every three months. 'And if the president is unhappy, then they will boomerang back to the 25% tariff rates, both on cars and the rest of their products. And I can tell you that I think at 25, especially in cars, the Japanese economy doesn't work,' Bessent told Fox News' 'The Ingraham Angle.' Akazawa denied that Bessent's quarterly review was part of the negotiations. 'In my past eight trips to the United States during which I held talks with the president and the ministers," Akazawa said. 'I have no recollection of discussing how we ensure the implementation of the latest agreement between Japan and the United States.' He said it would cause major disruptions to the economy and administrative processes if the rates first rise to 25% as scheduled on Aug. 1 and then drop to 15%. 'We definitely want to avoid that and I believe that is the understanding shared by the U.S. side,' he said. On buying U.S. rice, Japanese officials have said they have no plans to raise the current 770,000-ton 'minimum access' cap to import more from America. Agricultural Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said Japan will decide whether to increase U.S. rice imports and that Japan is not committed to a fixed quota. Trump's commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, has suggested that the Japanese agreement is putting pressure on other countries such as South Korea to strike deals with the U.S. Trump, who is traveling in Scotland, plans to meet on Sundayv with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to discuss trade. 'Whatever Donald Trump wants to build, the Japanese will finance it for him,' Lutnick said Thursday on CNBC. 'Pretty amazing.' Yamaguchi reported from Tokyo. © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Japan Today
3 minutes ago
- Japan Today
EU chief von der Leyen heads to Scotland for trade talks with Trump
By Andrew Gray and Andrea Shalal -European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen headed to Scotland on Saturday ahead of a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday afternoon, Commission spokespeople said, as officials from both sides said they were nearing a trade agreement. Trump, in Scotland for a few days of golfing and bilateral meetings, told reporters upon his arrival on Friday evening that he was looking forward to meeting with von der Leyen, calling her a highly respected leader. He repeated his view that there was a 50-50 chance that the U.S. and the 27-member European Union could reach a framework trade pact, adding that Brussels wanted to "make a deal very badly." If it happened, he said it would be the biggest trade agreement reached yet by his administration, surpassing the $550 billion accord reached with Japan earlier this week. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick also departed Washington for Scotland on Saturday to engage in high-level talks with EU officials before the meeting between Trump and von der Leyen, said an administration source who spoke on condition of anonymity. "We're cautiously optimistic that there will be a deal reached," the source said. "But it's not over till it's over." The European Commission on Thursday said a negotiated trade solution with the United States was within reach, even as EU members voted to approve countertariffs on 93 billion euros ($109 billion) of U.S. goods in case the talks collapse. EU diplomats say a possible deal between Washington and Brussels would likely include a broad 15% tariff on EU goods imported into the U.S., mirroring the U.S.-Japan deal, along with a 50% tariff on European steel and aluminum. The broad tariff rate would be half the 30% duties that Trump has threatened to slap on EU goods from August 1. To obtain a deal, Trump said the EU would have to "buy down" that 30% tariff rate, although he gave no specifics. He told reporters there was "not a lot" of wiggle room on the 50% tariffs that the U.S. is imposing on steel and aluminum imports, adding, "because if I do it for one, I have to do it for all." It remains unclear if Washington would exempt EU imports from other sectoral tariffs on automobiles, pharmaceuticals and other goods that have already been announced or are pending. Combining goods, services and investment, the EU and the United States are each other's largest trading partners by far. The American Chamber of Commerce in Brussels warned in March that any conflict jeopardized $9.5 trillion of business in the world's most important commercial relationship. © (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2025.
NHK
an hour ago
- NHK
Japan's trade negotiator to urge Trump to sign executive orders to cut tariffs
Japan's top negotiator for trade talks with the United States says the government intends to urge President Donald Trump to sign executive orders necessary to cut tariffs on Japanese imports at an early date. Economic Revitalization Minister Akazawa Ryosei made the remarks in an NHK news program on Saturday. Akazawa referred to the latest meeting in which Japan and the US reached an agreement on trade and tariffs. He said Trump is skilled at making deals with a style that presses for an answer. He said if Japan fell silent, that would be the end of it. So Akazawa raised his hand dozens of times, saying, "Mr. President, may I ask one more?" Akazawa stressed the significance of the agreement, saying Japan successfully lowered tariffs by 10 percentage points from the rate that had been scheduled to kick in on August 1. He said about 10 trillion yen in losses have been avoided. He also referred to a plan in which up to 550 billion dollars, or about 80 trillion yen, would be offered through government-affiliated financial institutions, including the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, for bilateral cooperation in economic security. The funds will be included in the category of investment, loans and loan guarantees. He said investment is expected to account for 1 or 2 percent of the total and that the Japanese government plans to accumulate the funds during Trump's term of office. Akazawa noted that what the government should do now is urge Trump to issue executive orders to lower the tariffs, not to draw up joint documents.
