President Barack Obama. Not CIA Director John Brennan. Not Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. And not FBI Director James Comey. But President Barack Obama. The 44th president of the United States directed the intelligence community to interfere in the peaceful transition of power to his successor — Donald Trump. And for that Obama should forevermore be considered a pariah in presidential history.
Last week, CIA Director John Ratcliffe released the agency’s review of the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) on “Russia’s Influence Campaign Targeting the 2016 US Presidential Election.” The CIA’s review exposed extensive problems with “the procedures and analytic tradecraft employed” by the intelligence community in crafting the ICA, revealing at the same time the role Brennan, Clapper, and Comey played in the corrupt process.
However, the CIA’s review of the ICA on Russia’s targeting of the 2016 election exposed something much more scandalous: President Obama was behind the entire plot to portray Putin as seeking to help Trump win the 2016 general election.
Yes, the CIA report showed, in the words of CIA Director Ratcliffe, “how Brennan and Clapper and Comey manipulated [and] silenced all the career professionals and railroaded the process.” But they were merely doing the dirty work for Obama, which is why CIA Director Ratcliffe stressed: “This was Obama, Comey, Clapper and Brennan deciding ‘We’re going to screw Trump.’”
While last week’s CIA report did not finger President Obama with the same neon-light arrow deployed by Director Ratcliffe, the details included confirm that yes, “[t]his was Obama;” and not merely that Obama knew or condoned the politicalization of the intelligence community, but that the former president directed the politicalization.
On December 6, 2016, President Obama “direct then-Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper to conduct a comprehensive review of all available intelligence and provide the IC’s best assessment of Russian activities related to the election,” the CIA report explained. That ask alone would not necessarily be concerning, but as a sidebar of the CIA report revealed, President Obama also put a timeline to that task, requiring both classified and unclassified versions of the report be published before the presidential transition.
So, not only did President Obama order the review, but he also directed it be completed essentially within a month and before Trump’s inauguration. There is no legitimate reason for Obama to demand the publication of an ICA on such a short timeframe, given the election had already concluded and thus the analysis would present “essentially a post-mortem analysis.”
Not only was there no legitimate reason for Obama to direct the completion of the ICA before the Trump transition, as the CIA report highlighted, “[t]he highly compressed timeline was atypical for a formal IC assessment, which ordinarily can take months to prepare, especially for assessments of such length, complexity, and political sensitivity.” Also unusual was the lack of changes between the draft version and the final version of the ICA, with “[o]ne of CIA’s lead authors express[ing] surprise that the review process had resulted in so few changes, which was ‘unusual’ for such a lengthy, complex, and high-profile assessment.”
President Obama’s involvement was also not limited to the tasking and timing of the ICA. Rather, as the CIA report noted, “[i]n his book Undaunted, Brennan reveals that he established crucial elements of the process with the White House.” That process included the CIA taking “the lead drafting the report” and limiting coordination to a handful of members of the intelligence community, namely “ODNI, CIA, FBI, and NSA.”
Again, there is no legitimate reason for the White House to coordinate the process with Brennan, much less to direct the CIA to lead the drafting of the ICA in contravention of standard procedures. Under standard procedures, the National Intelligence Council (“NIC”) held “control over drafting assignments, coordination, and review processes,” but when it came to the ICA on Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election, the NIC was “marginalized.”
Also “marginalized” by Brennan, Clapper, and Comey were CIA senior leaders and analysts. According to last week’s CIA report, there was “[e]xcessive involvement of agency heads in the analytic process … ”
“While agency heads sometimes review controversial analytic assessments before publication,” the CIA report explained, “their direct engagement in the ICA’s development was highly unusual in both scope and intensity.” In fact, “[o]ne CIA analytic manager involved in the process said other analytic managers — who would typically have been part of the review chain — opted out due to the politically charged environment and the atypical prominence of agency leadership in the process.”
And, again, as the CIA report noted, Brennan revealed in his book that “he established crucial elements of the process with the White House.” So, Obama not only ordered the completion of the ICA about Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election in a month and before Trump’s inauguration, but he also coordinated with Brennan on the “process” for completing the ICA — a process that sidelined IC professionals and left Brennan, Clapper, and Comey in charge.
Obama knew what he was doing and he knew who would do his bidding. And they did, with the threesome tainting the ICA report to further the Russia-collusion hoax, and FBI Director Comey then continuing to sabotage the first Trump Administration from the inside.
While Brennan, Clapper, and Comey all rightly deserve condemnation, Obama launched the plot and as president he holds greater responsibility for politicizing the intelligence community against his successor. And for that, he deserves to be forever ostracized.