John Brennan was Barack Obama’s CIA director, but he was also involved with Joe Biden, helping provide him with a key talking point during the 2020 election cycle regarding his son Hunter Biden's controversial laptop.
Brennan is now facing a possible indictment, but he was also called out during a panel event over the weekend for having signed the now-infamous letter suggesting that the laptop bore the hallmarks of Russian disinformation.
Brennan refused to answer questions on stage, then he had an absolute meltdown when he was confronted by Thomas Speciale, a national security consultant and former senior advisor to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, about the letter during a post-event reception.
This controversy goes all the way back to the 2020 election cycle, as former CIA director Michael Morell and Brennan exchanged emails about the aforementioned letter, created as part of an effort to debunk the Hunter Biden laptop story and bolster Joe Biden's chances of defeating Donald Trump.
Morell was clear that he wanted to give Joe Biden talking points to use if Trump brought up the laptop story during a presidential debate, to which Brennan responded, “Good initiative. Thanks for asking me to sign on.”
Biden did use the letter, responding to Trump’s on-stage attack by saying, “There are 50 former national intelligence folks, who said that what he’s accusing me of is a Russian plant. They have said that this has all the, four, five, former heads of the CIA, both parties say what he’s saying is a bunch of garbage.”
At the time, the media, for the most part, accepted that letter as fact, even though not a single signatory to the letter had personally inspected the laptop. The signatories were also very careful in how they worded their opinion, but that is not what got the attention. The media and Democrats solely focused on the conclusion that the story about the laptop had all the earmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign.
In addition to that little scandal, there is also a conclusion made by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) that Brennan lied about the Steele dossier while testifying before Congress, and now a criminal referral has been filed on the matter with the Department of Justice.
According to Jordan, Brennan lied about using the Steele dossier in the agency’s assessment and lied about having objected to using the Steele dossier in that same assessment.
Jordan is on the right side here, as was revealed via other communications and an Inspector General’s report on the Russian collusion investigation.
The Steele dossier was at the center of the assessment, and it was used by the FBI to secure FISA warrants. To this day, I don’t know how people were not sent to jail, with only one low-level FBI staffer ever having been held accountable for the FISA abuse that took place during that investigation.
In my opinion, if Brennan was not worried about the walls closing in on him, he would be laughing off these accusations, but he became quite testy when Speciale directly confronted him about the letter at the reception after the event.
We have to set the table by stating that during the panel discussion, Speciale had asked a question that was shut down by the moderator. Then, during that reception, Speciale directly confronted Brennan about his role in the letter.
Brennan started poking Speciale in the chest, which is way over the top for my money, and I have to admit that Speciale handled that aspect of it far better than I would have. But just watch Brennan and how agitated he is, clearly trying to intimidate Speciale, but it did not work…
After the conference on Thursday I confronted former CIA Director Brennan directly regarding his signing the 51 Intelligence Officers Memo knowing that the Hunter Biden laptop was real and not Russian disinformation. Watch his response. pic.twitter.com/blg86oBLRb
— Thomas A. Speciale II (@Speciale4VA) November 1, 2025
For decades, intelligence officers, especially those inside the CIA, have operated with relative impunity, but now they are finally being held accountable for their actions. Clearly, from Brennan’s reaction, they do not like it one bit. That, to me, looked like a man who knows he did something wrong, and who is starting to panic.
