Appearing Wednesday on CNN Tonight with host Don Lemon, network reporter Shimon Prokupecz expressed concerned over a report stating the Department of Justice seeks to interview senior CIA officials as part of Attorney General William Barr’s review of the origins of the FBI investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.
A partial transcript is as follows:
DON LEMON: You know this New York Times report mentioned that the Justice Department is now questioning CIA officers as they review this Russia investigation, which is?
SHIMON PROKUPECZ: It’s troubling because it’s not — you don’t do this. The CIA kind of operates in their own world. And for the Department of Justice to start begin questioning CIA agents, people who work there, questioning their work. You know for me I think what all this comes down to is former CIA director, John Brennan. I know the president obviously has been very unhappy with the way John Brennan has behaved since he left office. I think it goes back to that.
He’s very concerned about the information and how some of the information that the CIA had really may not have been stood up. They couldn’t verify a lot of the information. And the CIA, certainly John Brennan, was sounding a lot of alarms to Congress saying something’s going on here. I know he was talking to people at the FBI at the time concerned something was going on. But what we’re seeing from the Attorney General right now is that he’s saying that they with were acting on a lot of information that he’s concerned was not verified, there was no there, there. And perhaps they were overreacting and therefore caused other people to start reacting like the FBI and so it’s very — this is we’re in an extremely unprecedented time in terms of when you have Department of Justice officials now questioning CIA agents and analysts.