Former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team quietly met former CIA Director John Brennan at CIA headquarters in McLean, Virginia, on November 3, 2023, according to FBI documents released Monday. Yet the agents’ notes reveal virtually nothing about what Brennan told investigators.

The meeting involved personnel from the FBI Washington Field Office and Smith’s office. A typed FBI summary prepared five days later said the purpose was to discuss “expert testimony” involving National Defense Information in the classified documents investigation targeting President Donald Trump.

The summary said no documents were shown during the meeting and claimed the original agents’ notes would be maintained in an attached file. Those notes were indeed attached, but the pages were blank except for the date, location, Brennan’s name, and the government attendees.

DECLASSIFIED RECORDS: Brennan/Jack Smith Connection

Meeting CIA HQ: FBI notes are blank - November 2023 Former CIA Director John Brennan meets with special counsel staff, FBI agents "..purpose of the meeting was to discuss expert testimony to National Defense Information in the forthcoming trial..." Was Brennan being prepped as potential "expert witness" in Trump classified documents case? Former Senior FBI Agents: "Looks like an intel OP not a law enforcement probe...made the FBI notes disappear” At Least Three Potential Scenarios: - FBI agents took no notes, violating long standing Bureau procedures - FBI agents took notes which were intentionally withheld so 'Brennan conversation' was not discoverable for President Trump's lawyers - FBI agents' original notes were "electronically buried" in a restricted file NOTE: The FBI EC or Electronic Communication documents the 2023 Brennan meeting at CIA HQ “The original agent notes will be maintained in the attached 1A.” MISSING LINK: There should be a summary of the meeting/discussion known as an FBI 302 Brennan has consistently defended his actions in court and in front of Congress. Declassified records via @WhiteHouse transparency task force — Catherine Herridge (@C__Herridge) October 5, 2026

The White House Government Transparency Task Force released the memos Monday. The empty pages leave the substance of the Brennan meeting unrecorded, at least in the materials that were released.

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That glaring absence clashes with practices described in the U.S. attorney’s manual, formally called the Justice Manual. It says witness interviews generally should be memorialized by agents, while notes and original recordings should be preserved.

Standard FBI practice described in the source involves agents taking rough handwritten notes during interviews and later converting them into an official FD-302 Interview Report Form. In Brennan’s case, the released notes contain no account of his statements or the questions asked.

The meeting formed part of the FBI investigation code-named “Plasmic Echo.” That investigation later became the basis for Smith’s charges accusing Trump of mishandling classified information taken to his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida after his first presidential term ended.

A federal judge dismissed those charges after ruling that Smith had not been legally appointed as special counsel. The judge found that Smith had not received Senate confirmation as required by the Constitution’s Appointments Clause.

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Brennan’s potential role as an expert carried an obvious political complication because he had been a fierce Trump critic on television. He also continued serving as a paid “Senior National Security and Intelligence Analyst” for left-leaning MSNOW and collected tens of thousands of dollars in speaking fees.

The November 2023 meeting came several months after Brennan testified before the House Judiciary Committee about the discredited Russia collusion case. Chairman Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, alleged in an October 2025 criminal referral that Brennan’s testimony was false.

The House Judiciary Committee formally referred Brennan for prosecution, alleging that he gave false testimony about his role in efforts to include the Steele Dossier in an intelligence assessment. CIA Director John Ratcliffe also sent a criminal referral concerning Brennan to the FBI after a CIA “lessons-learned” review.

During Robert Mueller’s Russia collusion investigation, Brennan wrote in The New York Times that Trump’s claims of “no collusion” were “hogwash.” Brennan made the statement after Trump revoked his security clearance, and he argued that the decision sought to silence critics.

Brennan previously testified that the Intelligence Community had gathered information by July 2016 involving contacts between Russian officials and people connected to Trump’s campaign. According to Brennan, the CIA then created a special group with the FBI and NSA to examine alleged Russian election interference.

Special Counsel John Durham later reported that Brennan had also been made aware of intelligence regarding Hillary Clinton’s approval of a plan to create a Russia controversy against Trump. Durham said Brennan briefed President Barack Obama and senior administration officials about that intelligence.

Durham ultimately concluded that the FBI lacked verified intelligence or evidence when it opened Crossfire Hurricane in the summer of 2016. He also found that the FBI and Justice Department failed to follow their standards and allowed the investigation to continue on a questionable basis under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Brennan’s lawyer recently confirmed in a court filing that Brennan received a federal grand jury subpoena in Fort Pierce, Florida. The filing said prosecutors were examining whether Trump and his allies had been deprived of their civil rights through weaponized intelligence and law enforcement actions.

Former government prosecutor Kurt Olsen described that inquiry to Brennan’s counsel as “far-reaching” and involving “issues at Mar-a-Lago and beyond,” according to the filing. Brennan’s lawyer also wrote that Brennan was identified as a subject of the wider inquiry and a target of a narrower false statements investigation.

The newly released documents now add another unanswered chapter. Smith’s prosecutors met one of Trump’s most vocal intelligence community critics about possible expert testimony, while the FBI pages supposedly memorializing that meeting say almost nothing at all.

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