The Department of Justice has subpoenaed former FBI Director James Comey over his involvement in the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment on Russian election interference.

The subpoena, served last week from the Southern District of Florida, is connected to an ongoing investigation into former CIA Director John Brennan, according to a source who confirmed the development to Fox News Digital.

Comey is not a peripheral figure in this story. He is one of two former intelligence chiefs now under criminal investigation, the other being Brennan, whose referral came from CIA Director John Ratcliffe after a review of declassified records. FBI Director Kash Patel received that referral, opened the investigation into Brennan, and separately opened a criminal investigation into Comey.

The full scope of both investigations remains unclear. But the trail of declassified documents tells a story that deserves the scrutiny it is finally receiving.

What the intelligence community actually assessed

The subpoena pulls Comey into a question that has festered since 2017: how did the Intelligence Community Assessment released on January 6, 2017 reach conclusions that, according to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence itself, "directly contradicted the IC assessments that were made throughout the previous six months"?

That is not a Republican talking point. That is the IC's own determination.

In the months leading up to the November 2016 election, the intelligence community consistently assessed that Russia was "probably not trying … to influence the election by using cyber means." On December 7, 2016, then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper's talking points stated plainly:

"Foreign adversaries did not use cyberattacks on election infrastructure to alter the U.S. presidential election outcome."

One day later, a Presidential Daily Brief prepared for President Obama reinforced the same conclusion:

"We assess that Russian and criminal actors did not impact recent US election results by conducting malicious cyber activities against election infrastructure."

The brief acknowledged that Russian government-affiliated actors "most likely compromised an Illinois voter registration database" and attempted the same in other states unsuccessfully. But it assessed that such activity was "highly unlikely" to have "resulted in altering any state's official vote result." Criminal activity, the brief added, "also failed to reach the scale and sophistication necessary to change election outcomes."

None of this is ambiguous. The intelligence community, as of December 8, 2016, did not believe Russia had successfully used cyber operations to change election results.

The December 9 meeting that changed everything

That brief was expected to be published on December 9, 2016. It never ran on schedule.

Communications from the FBI stated the brief "should not go forward until the FBI" had shared its "concerns." The FBI drafted a dissent. An ODNI deputy director of the Presidential Daily Brief wrote that the brief "will not run tomorrow and is not likely to run until next week." The reason given: "based on some new guidance," ODNI decided to push back publication.

On that same December 9, a White House Situation Room meeting convened. The attendees included:

• Then-National Security Advisor Susan Rice
• Then-Secretary of State John Kerry
• Then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch
• Then-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe

A declassified meeting record obtained by Fox News Digital shows the principals "agreed to recommend sanctioning of certain members of the Russian military intelligence and foreign intelligence chains of command responsible for cyber operations as a response to cyber activity that attempted to influence or interfere with U.S. elections, if such activity meets the requirements" of an executive order blocking property belonging to people engaged in cyber activities.

Then came the pivotal move. An email from Clapper's executive assistant tasked intelligence community leaders with creating an entirely new assessment, "per the president's request." The record stated that "ODNI will lead this effort with participation from CIA, FBI, NSA, and DHS." The new ICA was to examine "tools Moscow used and actions it took to influence the 2016 election."

The assessment that emerged on January 6, 2017 told a radically different story than the one the intelligence community had been telling for six months.

The Steele Dossier's role

Declassified records revealed that Brennan pushed for the Steele Dossier to be included in the 2017 ICA. The dossier, paid for by Hillary Clinton's campaign and the DNC, was described by the CIA's own consensus as an "internet rumor." A later review found "procedural anomalies" and concluded that the "decision by agency heads to include the Steele Dossier in the ICA ran counter to fundamental tradecraft principles and ultimately undermined the credibility of a key judgment."

That is not a partisan characterization. That is the IC reviewing its own work and finding it corrupted.

The pattern intelligence officials describe

Intelligence officials told Fox News Digital that the process was "politicized" and that officials "suppressed intelligence from before and after the election showing Russia lacked intent and capability to hack the 2016 election." Officials said the final ICA tried to obscure the contradiction "by claiming the IC made no assessment on the 'impact' of Russian activities," when in reality the intelligence community "did, in fact, assess for impact."

One official put it directly to Fox News Digital:

"The unpublished December PDB stated clearly that Russia 'did not impact' the election through cyber hacks on the election."

After January 6, 2017, Obama officials "leaked false statements to media outlets," according to the reporting. The narrative that emerged, that "Russia has attempted through cyber means to interfere in, if not actively influence, the outcome of an election," bore little resemblance to what the intelligence community had assessed just weeks earlier.

What followed from that narrative is well documented: years of investigation, two congressional impeachments, and the steady erosion of public trust in institutions that were supposed to operate above politics.

Accountability arrives late, but it arrives

For years, the figures at the center of this story operated with the comfort of knowing they would never face consequences. They wrote books. They joined cable news panels. They collected speaking fees while the intelligence assessments they shaped warped American politics for half a decade.

Ratcliffe declassified the records that exposed the contradictions. Patel opened the investigations. Now the DOJ has served the subpoena.

The question Comey will have to answer is straightforward: how did the FBI help suppress a December 2016 assessment that said Russia did not impact the election, only to participate weeks later in producing a new assessment that said something dramatically different? What "concerns" did the FBI raise that killed the original brief? And what role did Comey play in a process that intelligence officials themselves describe as a "conspiracy"?

These are not rhetorical questions anymore. They are the subject of a federal subpoena. The machinery of accountability grinds slowly, but Comey just heard it turn.