SAN FRANCISCO, April 18 (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Justice will add an attorney who once worked for President Donald Trump to the investigation into former Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan, CNN reported on Saturday.
Citing sources familiar with the matter, the network reported that Joseph diGenova, who has worked with Trump’s legal team on a variety of matters, will join the Justice Department in the Southern District of Florida to work on the Brennan probe. Brennan, a cable news analyst and longtime critic of Trump, has condemned reported investigations into him as politically biased and a misuse of the legal system.
The Justice Department and diGenova’s law firm did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment. An attorney for Brennan has previously said there is no legal basis for an investigation.
The reports of diGenova’s appointment come days after Maria Medetis Long, a top career prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s office in Miami, told attorneys connected to the investigation that she is no longer working on the case.
Reuters reported this week that the FBI planned to interview roughly a half-dozen people, including former intelligence officials, over the next several weeks as part of the investigation into Brennan.
A DOJ official told Reuters this week that there had been frustration inside the department with the pace of the investigation. Another source familiar with the investigation said some witness interviews were not expected to take place until June.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has faced pressure to prosecute Trump’s perceived political enemies after his predecessor, Pam Bondi, was ousted over Trump’s dissatisfaction with her handling of probes Trump demanded.
A former federal prosecutor, diGenova was part of Trump’s legal team during an investigation by Robert Mueller into Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
DiGenova later worked with pro-Trump lawyers pursuing attempts to contest the 2020 election results, making waves when he suggested that a former cybersecurity official who had served in the Trump administration should be “Taken out at dawn and shot.”
(Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Editing by Sergio Non and Franklin Paul)
