DOJ 'Grand Conspiracy' Probe of Trump's Investigators Subpoenas John Brennan to Fort Pierce Grand Jury as Lead Prosecutor Quits (September 2026)

What Happened

The Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation, informally called the "grand conspiracy" probe, into whether government officials who investigated Donald Trump over the past decade conspired to deprive him of his civil rights. According to the AP, the probe rests on a "loosely defined theory" that covers both the response to Russian interference in the 2016 election and the later investigation of Trump's retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. The grand jury sits in Fort Pierce, Florida, in the courthouse of U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon. Trump appointed Cannon, and in 2024 she dismissed the classified-documents prosecution against him.

On September 10, 2026, prosecutors presented former CIA Director John Brennan with a subpoena to appear before that grand jury on October 15. Brennan is also the subject of a separate inquiry into whether he made false statements to Congress about the intelligence community's assessment of 2016 Russian interference.

The same day, the prosecutor leading the probe, Joe diGenova, resigned abruptly amid what a person familiar with the matter described to the AP as frustration from the Justice Department and the White House over the pace and management of the investigation. NPR reported that diGenova said: "If you want indictments where there's no evidence, you have an ethical problem." Kurt Olsen, who in 2020 unsuccessfully pushed the Justice Department to back Trump's false election claims, is also on the investigative team.

The Targets' Response

Brennan's lawyer, Ken Wainstein, said "there's no precedent for this situation" and that the government is "blatantly trying to frame somebody for a crime that is complete fiction." He alleged improper "judge-shopping" and directives from Trump targeting perceived adversaries. Brennan has asked a Washington federal judge, Jia Cobb, to order the government to preserve records relevant to a possible vindictive-prosecution defense. DOJ called the request "premature and speculative," arguing that Brennan lacks standing because he has not been charged.

On September 24, lawyers for current and former FBI agents and analysts who participated in the Mar-a-Lago investigation and had received grand jury subpoenas asked Judge Cannon whether a secrecy order she issued in February, which blocks release of special counsel Jack Smith's report and bars disclosure of non-public information from the case, prevents them from testifying. They said their clients would "readily provide to the grand jury a detailed account of the investigation" if legally permitted, but otherwise faced contempt, constrained testimony, or invoking the Fifth Amendment.

Legal Analysis

The investigation reverses the usual relationship between prosecutor and subject. The officials now under grand jury scrutiny are the ones who carried out the lawful, court-supervised investigations of the current president, including a Mar-a-Lago search conducted under a judicial warrant. The legal theory reportedly treats those investigations as a conspiracy against Trump's rights. It is being pursued before a judge Trump appointed who previously ruled in his favor in the same underlying matter (see doj-weaponization-political-prosecutions for the broader pattern).

No one has been charged, and a grand jury investigation is not a finding of wrongdoing by anyone. The pattern it fits is documented elsewhere in this archive: indictments of Comey and Letitia James dismissed because the prosecutor was unlawfully appointed, grand juries refusing to re-indict, and a second Comey prosecution over an Instagram photo (see doj-comey-indictment-2026). The lead prosecutor's departure amid reported pressure over pace, together with his remark about indictments "where there's no evidence," is relevant to whether the investigation is being driven by evidence or by a result chosen in advance.

Classification

This entry is classified as an enabling condition. Using criminal process against the officials who investigated a sitting president undermines the independence of law enforcement and the fair-trial guarantees of ICCPR Article 14. It is not an international crime.