Washington has spent nearly a decade arguing about Russiagate in congressional hearings, cable studios, memoirs, podcasts, and carefully lawyered statements.
Now somebody is bringing subpoenas.
The Justice Department has begun compelling former government officials to testify before a federal grand jury in Florida investigating whether crimes were committed during the government’s Trump-Russia investigations.
From the Associated Press:
The Justice Department is demanding testimony before a Florida grand jury in an investigation aiming to establish an intelligence community conspiracy against President Donald Trump, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.
New subpoenas being issued to former government officials represent an escalation in the year-long investigation as the Justice Department pursues a loosely defined theory that members of the intelligence community who scrutinized Trump over the last decade, including over Russian interference in the 2016 election, conspired against him and violated his rights.
Investigators in recent days contacted some defense lawyers for witnesses advising them of forthcoming grand jury subpoenas. It was not clear how many as of Tuesday had received a subpoena or were still waiting to receive one, and the identities of the witnesses receiving subpoenas were also not immediately clear. The people who confirmed the subpoenas spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss a secretive grand jury investigation.
The subpoenas mark a significant escalation from the voluntary interviews investigators previously sought.
Former CIA Director John Brennan is a target of part of the investigation. Brennan’s lawyers say he committed no wrongdoing and has cooperated with previous reviews.
No indictment has been announced; a subpoena isn’t proof of a crime, and a grand jury investigation isn’t a conviction waiting for paperwork.
Plus, as the old joke goes, a grand jury can indict a ham sandwich.
But sworn testimony is different from another Sunday morning interview.
Attorney General Todd Blanche appointed former U.S. Attorney Joe diGenova in April to help oversee the investigation. Prosecutors are examining decisions surrounding the intelligence community’s handling of Russian interference in the 2016 election and the government’s subsequent investigations involving Donald Trump’s campaign.
From the Associated Press:
The investigation is being run out of Florida, with the Justice Department in April bringing back into government service a top prosecutor from the Reagan administration, Joe diGenova, to serve as a counselor to the attorney general and help lead a team of agents and prosecutors.
diGenova, who had previously asked then-Attorney General Pam Bondi to appoint him to the job and has openly and repeatedly claimed Trump was the victim of an intelligence community conspiracy, declined to comment Tuesday when reached by the AP.
In an indication of the wide-ranging nature of the investigation, the AP reported last month that diGenova’s team has sought interviews with law enforcement officials involved in the 2022 FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property in Palm Beach, Florida. The search recovered a trove of classified documents that formed the basis of a since-abandoned Justice Department prosecution of Trump, who has long decried the FBI operation as an invasion of his privacy.
Brennan’s role deserves particular scrutiny because he headed the CIA when the intelligence community produced its January 2017 assessment of Russian election interference.
A declassified House Intelligence Committee report released in 2025 challenged parts of the process behind that assessment. The report said Brennan pushed for the inclusion of information from the Steele dossier, despite concerns about its credibility.
Brennan has disputed allegations that he manipulated intelligence or acted improperly.
Americans have heard competing versions of this history for years.
Trump and his allies say intelligence and law-enforcement institutions abused their authority while pursuing a political opponent. Brennan and other former officials maintain that Russia genuinely interfered in the 2016 election and that intelligence officials acted appropriately in assessing the threat.
Both propositions contain questions that deserve evidence rather than another round of television combat.
Russia did interfere in the election extensively, as the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee documented.
The Committee found that the Russian government engaged in an aggressive, multifaceted effort to influence, or attempt to influence, the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. Parts of this effort are outlined in the Committee’s earlier volumes on election security, social media, the Obama Administration’s response to the threat, and the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA). (U)
The fifth and final volume focuses on the counterintelligence threat, outlining a wide range of Russian efforts to influence the Trump Campaign and the 2016 election. In this volume the Committee lays out its findings in detail by looking at many aspects of the counterintelligence threat posed by the Russian influence operation.
For example, the Committee examined Paul Manafort’ s connections to Russian influence actors and the FBI’ s treatment of reporting produced by Christopher Steele. While the Committee does not describe the final result as a complete picture, this volume provides the most comprehensive description to date of Russia’s activities and the threat they posed.
This volume presents this information in topical sections in order to address coherently and in detail the wide variety of Russian actions. The events explained in these sections in many cases overlap, and references in each section will direct the reader to those overlapping parts of the volume. Immediately below is a summary of key findings from several sections.
But acknowledging Russian interference doesn’t settle whether every government action taken in response was justified, accurate, or lawful.
Those are separate questions.
A grand jury has advantages Washington’s usual political theater lacks. Witnesses can be compelled to appear. Evidence can be subpoenaed, testimony occurs under oath, and prosecutors can compare what witnesses say with documents and with one another.
Most importantly, television ratings aren’t the point.
If investigators uncover criminal conduct, follow the evidence and prosecute it.
If they don’t, say so.
The Trump administration shouldn’t use federal prosecutors to manufacture revenge against political enemies. Neither should former intelligence officials receive permanent immunity from scrutiny because investigating them might be described as revenge.
Government power is government power, regardless of whose name appears on the office door.
After almost 10 years of Russiagate accusations, counteraccusations, investigations, investigations of investigations, and enough television panels to constitute cruel and unusual punishment, Americans deserve something less glamorous.
Answers.
Under oath.
And maybe, finally, something will happen. Putting this as cleanly as possible, like my dad used to say, it’s time to poo or get off the pot.
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