A review released by CIA director John Ratcliffe on June 26, 2025, pulls back the curtain on one of the most hotly debated intelligence products of the past decade: the December 2016 assessment that President Vladimir Putin “aspired” to help Donald Trump win the U.S. election.”
In May 2025, Ratcliffe tasked the CIA’s Directorate of Analysis (D.A.) with conducting “a lessons-learned review of the procedures and analytic tradecraft employed in the highest classified version of the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA)” titled “Russia’s Influence Campaign Targeting the 2016 US Presidential Election,” dated December 30, 2016. Disturbingly, the review, titled “The Tradecraft Review of the 2016 Intelligence Community Assessment [ICA] on Russian Election Interference,” concluded that the ICA departed from “established processes and tradecraft standards” to produce a misleading document that lacked objectivity and exhibited political bias.
Ratcliffe’s review identified several factors that undermined the quality of the final intelligence product:
The 2016 ICA came together in record time, making it difficult to vet or challenge its core claims. According to Ratcliffe’s review, compartmentalization eroded “rigorous tradecraft,” preventing analysts from fully scrutinizing the evidence underpinning their conclusions.
In one striking illustration of excessive compartmentalization, the I.C. relied on a single, top-secret CIA report from July 2016 — sequestered in a special “Fusion Cell” that Brennan himself had established. That report remained hidden from most analysts until the eve of sign-off, underscoring how Brennan tightly controlled access: Although the intelligence had been collected months earlier, it wasn’t formally incorporated into CIA reporting until the week of December 19.
Because of this compartmentalization, many analysts worked only from summary excerpts — forced to judge a decision of immense importance without seeing the complete evidence. The Ratcliffe-ordered review cautions that this approach can “inadvertently amplify uncertainty” rather than resolve it.
Ironically, a 2017 internal audit found that the highest-classified ICA had been distributed to more than 200 U.S. officials — an exceptionally large audience by I.C. standards. That broad circulation calls into question the justification for earlier “extreme limitations on access to underlying intelligence within the IC” and suggests the process was driven more by a desire to shape perceptions than by sound tradecraft.
Instead of the usual multi-month drafting period usually employed to produce such an important document, ICA authors finalized the text in under seven days. Agencies barely had 48 hours for their “line-by-line review” on December 19. The process entered formal review the next day. “Hand-carried paper copies shuttled between offices left little room for comprehensive debate, steering analysts toward tweaks in phrasing instead of challenging core assumptions. In addition, one of the authors “expressed surprise that the review process had resulted in so few changes,” according to the review.
The media also played an active role in the effort to undermine Trump. Media talking heads persuaded millions of Americans that Russia had secretly intervened to hand him the presidency. According to the Ratcliffe-ordered review, then–CIA Director John Brennan and DNI James Clapper were “excessively involved” in shaping that narrative.
Of note, and according to the review, “ICD (Intelligence Community Directive) 203 stipulates that analysis be ‘independent of political consideration’ and ‘must not be distorted by, nor shaped for, advocacy of a particular audience, agenda, or policy viewpoint.’” It has become abundantly clear that Brennan and others blatantly disregarded those directives.
The review highlights Brennan’s heavy-handed approach while compiling the ICA report. Breaking from the usual hierarchy, Brennan personally steered the ICA’s final language, sidelining the National Intelligence Council and excluding agencies like DIA and State’s INR from key discussions. Emails unearthed in the new review show Brennan urging that the “big three” (CIA, FBI, NSA) to lock in the report’s core phrases verbatim — an intervention that effectively quashed potential dissent and channeled the process toward a single, unified narrative.
Additionally, Brennan, Clapper, and other senior officials repeatedly appeared on television invoking the existence of “unnamed U.S. officials” with alleged access to classified information to bolster their credibility. They leveraged the aura of confidentiality — using the mystique of confidentiality as a smokescreen — to lend unwarranted authority to their “consensus view” of Kremlin meddling. Fully aware that much of their account rested on speculation and unverified claims, these agency heads used their positions and the supposed credibility of “classified material” to manipulate public perception in favor of a predetermined narrative.
According to the review, Brennan also leaned on his authority to allegedly strong-arm the I.C.’s judgment. On the eve of the December 19 coordination session, he broadcast to the entire CIA that he had conferred with the DNI and the FBI director. He relayed to ICA authors and analysts that there was already a “strong consensus among us on the scope, nature, and intent of Russian interference in our recent Presidential election.” Brennan’s communications were likely deliberate, designed to discourage dissent and pressure analysts into alignment.
Notably, the I.C. also secured FBI buy-in, requiring the contentious, Steele Dossier to be folded into the assessment, despite analytic reservations about its unverified nature. The dossier’s summary was banished to an annex — only to be cited in the main body as one of four pillars supporting the Putin-Trump “aspiration.” According to the review,
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 (DDA) warned in an email to Brennan on 29 December that including it in any form risked “the credibility of the entire paper.”
Showing a preference for “narrative consistency” even when “confronted with specific flaws in the Dossier,” Brennan responded, saying, “My bottom line is that I believe that the information warrants inclusion in the report.”
Ratcliffe’s review does not completely dismiss the ICA. It praises the 173 clandestine and 74 open-source citations that seemingly anchor many conclusions. His review also features a transparent labeling of confidence levels and a candid acknowledgment of intelligence gaps. Nevertheless, it also calls out the “high confidence” in the Kremlin’s intent as disproportionate to the thin, compartmented evidence underpinning it.
In the end, the June 2025 review delivers more than critique — it prescribes reform and a return to best practices. He recommends the more typical use of longer drafting timelines, a wider circle of analytic participants, equitable access to all relevant sources, and a non-negotiable need for separation between political leadership and analytic leads. Given the I.C.’s damaged reputation because of politicized intelligence reports like the one in 2016, it remains to be seen whether such reforms will help rebuild public faith in the CIA’s most consequential judgments.
Image via PickPik.