Former CIA Director John Brennan told MSNBC that he had not been alerted that he was being investigated by the FBI before the news dropped on Tuesday.

Brennan said on Wednesday he "knows nothing" of the Department of Justice investigations into himself and ex-FBI Director James Comey but slammed the probes as politically motivated.

John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director and a harsh critic of his Democratic-appointed predecessors, has made a criminal referral of Mr. Brennan to the F.B.I., accusing him of lying to Congress, official...