WASHINGTON (AP) — Former CIA Director John Brennan sued the Trump administration on Wednesday, demanding a court order that would require officials to preserve records from investigations that he says are targeting him for "phantom criminal conduct."
Brennan said in the lawsuit that the records would be essential for him to mount a defense on vindictive prosecution grounds in the event of a future indictment brought by the administration. Such a defense, his lawyers said, would be supported by the more than 100 verbal or written statements that President Donald Trump has made since 2017 lambasting Brennan and by the Republican president's directives to his Department of Justice to initiate cases "without regard to factual or legal justification."
"To fully consider those motions, the reviewing judge would need to scrutinize the motivations of the Justice Department officials who directed, oversaw, or undertook those actions to determine whether they violated Director Brennan's rights, and specifically whether they were motivated by a desire to vindictively prosecute him as an act of retribution," Brennan's lawyers wrote in the lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington.