A newly declassified CIA review finds the agency’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election suffered from political pressure.

Washington

A declassified CIA review, initiated by Director John Ratcliffe, has found that the agency's 2016 investigation into Russian interference in the US presidential election was affected by political pressure and deviations from established analytic processes. The review noted that the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) suffered from politicization and the inclusion of unverified information, such as the Steele dossier, despite objections from senior analysts.

The report concluded that while the overall assessment was considered defensible, procedural anomalies and tradecraft issues highlighted the risks of handling politically sensitive topics under time pressure. The review emphasized the need for adherence to rigorous analytic standards to maintain credibility and objectivity in intelligence assessments.

CIA reveals Obama's Russia collusion hoax was corrupt from the start

The CIA's report investigating the 2016 election was corrupt from the start, according to a new review from the agency, tasked by Director John Ratcliffe. The 2016 Intelligence Community Assessment was carried out soon after President Trump defeated Hillary Clinton, when then-President Barack Obama directed former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to review alleged Russian activity in the election. What followed was bad intelligence tradecraft and a politicization of the intel community. Ratcliffe wrote, Agency heads at the time created a politically charged environment that triggered an atypical analytic process around an issue essential to our democracy. Under my watch, I am committed to ensuring that our analysts have the ability to deliver unvarnished assessments that are free from political influence. Ratcliffe's tradecraft review was published yesterday, finding, The review of the 2016 ICA revealed how departures from established processes and tradecraft standards can affect even fundamentally sound analysis. While the overall assessment was deemed defensible, the identified procedural anomalies and tradecraft issues highlight critical lessons for handling controversial or politically charged topics. Adhering to established analytic procedures and rigorous tradecraft is essential to ensure credibility, objectivity, and accuracy, particularly when time pressures, sensitive information, and high-level attention create risks of compromising standard practices. Alex, I went through and read this report. I was surprised, and I thought I knew a lot about the Russia collusion investigation. You wrote about it in your book, Lawless Lawfare. What can you tell us based on what you saw in Ratcliffe's report? So from the report, what stood out to me is that it seemed every aspect of this was based on Christopher Steele's unverified dossier that was funded by political opposition that we know from the DNC, the Hillary campaign. And I do. I have a chapter on Russia in my book, Lawless Lawfare, available on Amazon for all, everybody that wants to go check it out. But one of the things that stuck out to me was what taxpayers had to pay for this. This whole chasing, basically, political opposition research. And it was $40 million for—or, I'm sorry, $32 million for Mueller, his probe. And then John Durham—remember him? He was basically the special counsel that investigated the special counsel, right, the origins of the actual probe. That was $7.6 million. So we're looking at a total, as I said, $40 million that taxpayers spent chasing, basically, this Russia collusion that never was. Well, the report was perhaps the most critical of the inclusion in that Steele dossier that you mentioned, and the dossier failed in its attempt to tie then-candidate Donald Trump to Russian government operatives, despite many issues with the dossier. It was included in this report, simply because John Brennan wanted it in there. The ICA authors and multiple senior CIA managers, including the two senior leaders of the CIA mission center responsible for Russia, strongly opposed including the dossier, asserting that it did not meet even the most basic tradecraft standards. CIA's deputy director for analysis warned in an email to Brennan on the 29th of December that including it in any form risked the credibility of the entire paper. Despite these objections, Brennan showed a preference for narrative consistency over analytical soundness. When confronted with specific flaws in the dossier by two mission center leaders, he appeared more swayed by the dossier's general conformity with existing theories than by legitimate tradecraft concerns. So, Jason, I have to ask, are Democrats finally going to admit that this was a flawed attempt on their part to tarnish the first term of Donald Trump? So, if you're talking about the Mueller program—and by the way, I can tell that you're a dad. You would be a great storyteller, you know, and reading a book—you know, I want to get your voice recorded so I can listen to it, but not in a bad way like Hakeem Jeffries, apparently.

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