The Long Memory of the Republic
- Rick de la Torre
- Jul 10
- 3 min read
There’s an old joke in Washington: justice delayed is just another Friday. But every now and then, something cuts through the fog of institutional decay. “FBI launches criminal investigations of John Brennan, James Comey.” That’s not rumor. That’s federal. That’s real. And it might just be the first tremor of a long-overdue reckoning.

According to sources inside the Department of Justice, the two former intelligence chiefs are under active investigation for their roles in the crafting of the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment—the document that gave official license to the now-debunked Trump–Russia collusion narrative. And it wasn’t just flawed. It was rigged. Shaped from the top down. Internally resisted. Politically loaded. And in the words of DOJ officials: “atypical.”
The assessment leaned heavily on the infamous Steele dossier, a piece of opposition research commissioned by the Clinton campaign and passed off as credible intelligence. Despite its glaring deficiencies, Brennan and Clapper reportedly pushed to include it. The goal wasn’t clarity—it was optics. Take raw rumor, bless it with classification, and slap a seal on it. Brennan, always eager to frame dissent as sedition, used his perch at CIA not to inform the public but to inflame it. Clapper, as DNI, went along for the ride.
And then there’s Comey.
Comey oversaw the FBI’s use of the Steele dossier to justify surveillance of a U.S. citizen. He signed off on FISA warrants riddled with factual omissions and withheld exculpatory evidence. When things got sticky, he leaked internal memos to the press to trigger a special counsel investigation. And through it all, he cloaked himself in sanctimony, pretending he was above politics while playing the game harder than anyone else in town.
Now, in what can only be described as symbolic arrogance, Comey posted an image online of seashells arranged to read “86 47.” For anyone unfamiliar with the lingo, “86” is slang for eliminating something. “47” refers to Trump, the 47th president. Interpretations vary, but the message was clear enough to prompt a Secret Service investigation. They tailed Comey and his wife across state lines, tracked their phones, and interviewed him. His defense? He didn’t know “86” could mean that. Sure. Just like he didn’t know the Steele dossier was political trash when he used it to greenlight surveillance on an American.
This isn’t just poor judgment. It’s a pattern. Craft the narrative. Exploit your title. Leak to the press. When cornered, hide behind the badge you no longer wear.
And while the FBI at least pretended to clean house—firing or charging a few of Comey’s subordinates—the CIA under Brennan never even blinked. No resignations. No reprimands. No IG report. No questions asked. Some of the senior officials who helped push this garbage through the system are still in the building. Some are running it.
That’s not just negligence. That’s institutional rot.
This is why the investigation matters. Not because Brennan and Comey will see the inside of a cell. They probably won’t. The system protects its architects. But because without exposure—without naming the abuse for what it was—we guarantee it happens again. Different names. Same playbook.
Our enemies watched the entire circus unfold. They didn’t need to interfere. We did it to ourselves. The Chinese didn’t fabricate the dossier. The Russians didn’t insert it into an intelligence product. The Iranians didn’t brief it to Congress. That was us. That was Brennan. That was Comey. That was a bureaucracy convinced it was more righteous than the people it serves.
If this investigation fizzles, the message is simple: the powerful can lie, leak, and manipulate without consequence. But if DOJ follows this through—if even one strand of this tangled mess is held to the light—then the long memory of the republic still matters.
Because justice isn’t always fast. It isn’t always loud. But sometimes it circles back with a file in hand and starts asking questions.
And sometimes, that’s enough to shake the walls. #AccountabilityMatters #IntelligenceAbuse #Brennan #Comey #DeepStateExposed #DOJInvestigation #ICAssessment #8647 #PoliticalWeaponization #RestoreTrust #RuleOfLaw #JusticeIsComing #TruthOverNarrative #NeverForget