MIAMI — The Justice Department reassigned career attorney Maria Medetis Long off the criminal investigation into whether former CIA director John Brennan lied to Congress, and placed Chris DeLorenz on the case. Medetis Long, chief of the national security division in the U.S. attorney's office for the Southern District of Florida, informed attorneys involved in the case that she was no longer handling it.

Medetis Long had expressed reservations about the investigation into Brennan. She told U.S. Attorney Jason Reding Quiñones that she did not believe there was enough evidence to make a case against Brennan.

Reding Quiñones, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, has told Justice Department officials that an indictment in the Brennan investigation may be forthcoming soon.

A Justice Department spokesperson said Medetis Long remains employed by the department. A department spokesperson said attorneys are routinely moved between cases to allocate resources effectively.

DeLorenz recently left Washington to serve as an assistant U.S. attorney in Miami, according to a department official. He previously served as a law clerk for U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon during the investigation into President Trump's retention of classified records, and most recently worked as an adviser in the Deputy Attorney General's office.

The investigation was prompted by a referral from the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee in October 2025 alleging that Brennan lied to Congress about the CIA's role in drafting the intelligence assessment into Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election. That intelligence community assessment, released in January 2017, found Russia interfered in the 2016 election to boost Trump's chances.

A former CIA official is set to be interviewed by federal prosecutors and FBI agents in early May as part of the ongoing investigation. The former official is a witness, not a target, and has been interviewed more than once by federal investigators. The former official was asked about the decision to include the Steele dossier in the annex to the Intelligence Community Assessment released in 2017.