Earlier today CIA Director John Ratcliffe announced he was declassifying an “Internal Tradecraft Review of 2016 Election ICA to Promote Analytic Objectivity and Transparency.” Obviously the CIA saying they are releasing something for the sake of “transparency” is a little funny.
The CIA review triggered by Director Ratcliffe was for the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) that was conducted in the aftermath of the 2016 election. The ICA was also known as the “17 agency report” relied upon by those who pushed the Trump-Russia narrative.
Ever since the sketchy “Russian Malicious Cyber Activity – Joint Analysis Report” was originally released late December 2016 we identified both constructs, the ICA and JAR as a mostly political intelligence documents, created to justify a Russian narrative.
The Dec ’16 ICA was also the predicate intelligence report that preceded the December 29, 2016, Joint Analysis Report that claimed “Russian cyber hacking” in the election. Cumulatively the ICA and JAR formed the background for Barack Obama to expel 35 Russian diplomats.
None of this is new. CTH outlined these two corrupt Intelligence Community constructs in real time when they were released. {SEE HERE}. As time went on, and as the Clinton-Steele dossier was revealed, the 17 agency Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) grew even weaker.
In late October 2017 former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper admitted the Clinton-Steele dossier was part of the Joint Analysis Report. Eventually, our research indicated the dossier and the intelligence report were likely the underlying evidence behind the FISA Title-1 application (and subsequent renewals) for surveillance on Carter Page and by extension the Trump campaign. All of that was proven to be accurate.
Now CIA Director John Ratcliffe provides an independent CIA review of their organizational action at the time the Trump-Russia narrative was created. CIA Press Statement:
“Earlier this year, CIA Director John Ratcliffe tasked Agency career professionals with decades of experience to conduct a lessons-learned review of the procedures and analytic tradecraft employed in the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) conducted shortly after the 2016 election. Today, Director Ratcliffe declassified the results of this review.
The tradecraft review identified multiple procedural anomalies in the preparation of the 2016 ICA, such as a compressed timeline, uneven access to compartmented information, marginalization of the National Intelligence Council, and excessive involvement of agency heads. The review notes that adhering to established analytic processes and rigorous tradecraft is essential to ensure credibility, objectivity, and accuracy of CIA analysis.
Director Ratcliffe declassified this review in order to promote analytic objectivity and transparency. “Agency heads at the time created a politically charged environment that triggered an atypical analytic process around an issue essential to our democracy,” said Director Ratcliffe. “Under my watch, I am committed to ensuring that our analysts have the ability to deliver unvarnished assessments that are free from political influence.” (LINK)
The bottom line is what we said all along. The Intelligence Community, CIA, FBI, DNI, etc. intentionally fabricated intelligence information to create an entirely fictitious storyline.
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