John Brennan is not used to being challenged, certainly not by someone who knows the lingo and the history. That is why his temper flared when Thomas Speciale, a career intel officer who worked at the DNI and served as a senior advisor to Tulsi Gabbard, confronted him at a conference. The topic was the greatest hits of the past decade, the Steele dossier, the Intelligence Community Assessment, and that infamous 2020 letter from 51 former intel officials about Hunter Biden’s laptop. In other words, all the things Brennan would prefer to memory hole.
According to attendees, the exchange went from tense to volcanic fast. “I do not know who put you up to this,” Brennan snapped at Speciale, before escalating to a full on “it is a bunch of bull***t that you just passed off.” That kind of language plays differently when it is coming from a former CIA Director who spent years telling Americans to trust the experts. Apparently the experts do not care for questions from the people who were in the room.
Corrupt traitor John Brennan is still lying about the Hunter Biden laptop letter that he and 50 other “intelligence experts” put out.
Glad to see him be confronted in person on this but he still needs to be held accountable in a meaningful way for his lies. pic.twitter.com/wqxMuXFSND
— Gain of Fauci (@DschlopesIsBack) November 1, 2025
Speciale pressed on after the panel, asking Brennan directly about his role in the 51 intel letter that cast Hunter Biden’s laptop as part of a Russian “influence operation.” Brennan’s response was loud and defensive. “We never said it was disinformation. We said it was a Russian influence operation.” Translation, the letter did not claim the emails were fake, it implied the story smelled like Moscow. The distinction seemed critical to Brennan, less so to millions of voters who watched a convenient letter, signed by the former CIA chief and other luminaries, flood the news cycle just days before a presidential debate and election. The New York Post called them the Spies Who Lie, and the label stuck for a reason.
Whatever you call it, the effect was the same. Big Tech throttled the story, corporate media declared it tainted, and Joe Biden waved the letter around like a permission slip in the final sprint. Critics argue the signatories knew better or should have, and that the letter served a political purpose, not an analytic one. Brennan’s angry insistence that it was all fair and square did not persuade Speciale, or anyone else outside the MSNBC green room.
There is also the small matter of congressional oversight. House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan recently referred Brennan to the Justice Department for potential prosecution, alleging Brennan made false statements in a May 2023 interview about the CIA’s use of the Steele dossier in drafting the 2017 ICA and about whether the agency opposed including dossier material. Jordan’s referral is not a conviction, it is a formal request for DOJ to look at sworn statements and decide if the line was crossed. Still, it underscores why Brennan looks so rattled. When the narrative shifts from cable hits to transcripts, the margin for spin gets narrow.
So Brennan erupted, Speciale did not back down, and the public got a rare, unvarnished look at how the sausage was made. The same people who told the country to “trust the intelligence community” hate being asked to explain themselves. That tells you plenty.
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