Former CIA Director John Brennan raised the possibility in a Saturday interview that Russian President Vladimir Putin could have planted a chip in the presidential limousine when he joined President Trump for a ride to their summit on Friday.

In an interview on MSNBC’s “The Briefing with Jen Psaki,” the Obama-era CIA chief criticized Trump’s approach to the historic summit with Putin and said he hopes the Secret Service did a thorough sweep after they huddled in the backseat of the vehicle.

“The fact that he was given a ride then in the Presidential limousine, The Beast — I certainly hope the Secret Service has swept that vehicle very well, in terms of any type of, you know, small microchip that might have been put in the vehicle,” Brennan said.

Brennan earlier discussed Putin’s experience as a KGB agent and described the Russian leader as an astute manipulator.

Asked for his assessment of the “optics” of the summit, Brennan said, “It’s clear that Vladimir Putin felt very confident from the arrival in terms of how he was greeted.”

“Again, an international pariah, a war criminal, who was basically embraced by the president of the United States on a red carpet in the United States,” Brennan continued. “So I think you could see on Putin’s face, he felt very, very comfortable.”

Trump greeted Putin at the summit on a red carpet spread across the runway of a U.S. air base, and the U.S. president clapped as the Russian leader approached. The two men shook hands, and Putin joined Trump in his presidential limo as they traveled to the summit to discuss an end to the war in Ukraine.

Brennan called the display “shameful” and said he thinks Trump “realized throughout the day that he was getting played by Putin.”

“But also, I think Donald Trump just put himself in this position. He was the one who offered this meeting. He was the one who invited Putin to US territory. He was the one that put together the summit that clearly there was very little preparation for, and they came out empty handed,” Brennan said.

“When I look at what happened today, it was embarrassing. I think it was shameful, but also I think it’s very, very worrisome, from the standpoint of the United States, the leader of the United States, engaged with President Putin and came away with, apparently, nothing at this point,” he continued, noting that Trump effectively “normalized Vladimir Putin for all the tremendous suffering and the devastation that he has wrought in Ukraine.”

In 1944, Hungarian officials sat down with pen and paper and recorded by hand the seizure of 90 Torah scrolls from Jewish families. This was not wartime chaos, but deliberate, state-organized cultural erasure.

That document, buried for decades in microfilm archives, was recently made public for the first time through the Holocaust Art Recovery Initiative. It is a single page, handwritten in a steady but chilling script. It doesn’t describe battles or casualties. It inventories sacred scrolls stolen from Jews who were soon to be deported.

These 90 Torahs were part of a larger pattern of thousands of cultural, artistic and religious items looted by Nazi-allied regimes across Europe. In Hungary alone, tens of thousands of Jewish-owned artworks, books and ceremonial objects were systematically stolen, catalogued and in many cases absorbed into state museum collections. Families were erased. Their heritage was buried — sometimes literally.

Today, many of those items remain in public institutions. And in the U.S., survivors and their heirs often face insurmountable legal barriers when trying to recover what was taken.

That’s why Congress must pass the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act Improvements of 2025, a bipartisan bill introduced in the Senate by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and in the House by Rep. Laurel Lee (R-Fla.). This legislation would strengthen and extend the original HEAR Act, first passed in 2016, which was designed to ensure Holocaust restitution claims could be heard on their merits.

That law is set to expire in 2026. Without swift action, survivors and families may permanently lose access to justice.

New evidence like the handwritten Torah document reinforces the urgency. This isn’t theoretical. It’s tangible. And it speaks to a broader truth: The Holocaust wasn’t just a genocide of people — it was a systematic looting of culture, identity and memory.

The legal fight is not easy. As recent cases like Republic of Hungary v. Simon demonstrate, foreign sovereign immunity laws, expired statutes of limitations and bureaucratic stonewalling have made it nearly impossible for families to recover what was taken. The HEAR Act Improvements of 2025 addresses these very challenges, extending the timeline and reinforcing the right to be heard in U.S. courts.

More than 25 national organizations have endorsed the legislation, including the World Jewish Restitution Organization and the Claims Conference. They rightly note that each object stolen represents not just property, but a life interrupted — and a legacy denied.

Restitution is not about money. It is about dignity. It is about accountability. And, yes, it is about history. When lawmakers see the original documents — handwritten proof of cultural theft — they begin to understand why this work cannot wait.

Congress still has time to do the right thing. But the clock is ticking, and the handwriting is on the page.

Jonathan H. Schwartz is a litigation partner at Taft-Detroit and co-founder of the Holocaust Art Recovery Initiative. He also serves as president emeritus of the Jewish Bar Association of Michigan and recently authored an evidence report on Hungarian Holocaust-era art theft.

Ukraine’s president and a number of European leaders on Monday said the U.S. must be a partner in creating the future security architecture for Ukraine and the entire European continent. 

The statement came after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky huddled with European leaders at the Ukrainian embassy in Georgetown before heading to the White House to meet with President Trump.

While Trump has ruled out bringing Ukraine into NATO, he has raised some sort of security guarantees for the country as part of any peace deal with Russia.

“The leaders welcomed the readiness of the United States to participate in guaranteeing security for Ukraine. One of the key issues in the negotiations with President Trump will be the joint participation of the United States and Europe in creating the future security architecture for Ukraine and, consequently, for the entire European continent,” the statement read. 

The signatories to the statement included President of Finland Alexander Stubb, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Keir Starmer, President of the Council of Ministers of Italy Giorgia Meloni, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.