A new report from the CIA criticizes the way intelligence agencies, including the CIA itself under former Director John Brennan, determined that Russia interfered with the 2016 presidential election in President Trump’s favor.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe ordered the “lessons-learned review” of the steps taken in the intelligence community assessment titled “Russia’s Influence Campaign Targeting the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election” in May of this year.
The review specifically focused on whether Russian President Vladimir Putin “aspired” to help Mr. Trump win his first election.
In social media posts after the release of the memo, Mr. Ratcliffe said the president “has trusted me with helping to end weaponization of US intelligence.”
He said the report “underscores that the 2017 IC Assessment was conducted through an atypical & corrupt process under the politically charged environments of former Dir. Brennan & former FBI Dir. [James] Comey.”
In another post, he said Mr. Brennan, Mr. Comey and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper “manipulated intelligence and silenced career professionals — all to get Trump.”
While the declassified eight-page memo released Wednesday pointed out “anomalies” of the earlier investigation, it did not refute its findings. It also said the assessment demonstrated “strong adherence to tradecraft standards” and the “analytic rigor exceeded that of most IC assessments.”
“While the overall assessment was deemed defensible, the identified procedural anomalies and tradecraft issues highlight critical lessons for handling controversial or politically charged topics,” the report said.
It also said a review like this wasn’t conducted until now because “it was considered too politically sensitive.”
The 2017 intelligence assessment said Russia did play a role in helping Mr. Trump win the election by launching a disinformation campaign to damage then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Mr. Trump has called that assessment a “hoax.”
The new CiA memo took issue with the short timeline of the assessment, “excessive involvement” from top officials, and the “uneven access” granted to those involved.
It took special issue with the inclusion of a two-page summary of the Steele dossier, a report that made allegations of misconduct and cooperation between the Trump campaign and Russia, saying it was “unsubstantiated,” and that using it “implicitly elevated unsubstantiated claims to the status of credible supporting evidence, compromising the analytical integrity of the judgment.”
Mr. Ratcliffe said the reason for the anomalies is that “agency heads at the time created a politically charged environment that triggered an atypical analytic process around an issue essential to our democracy.”
He vowed to make sure “our analysts have the ability to deliver unvarnished assessments that are free from political influence.”
The role Russia played in the 2016 election has been looked at several times besides the original 2017 assessment.
Special counsel Robert Mueller conducted a nearly two-year investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. His findings, released in 2019, found that Russia was involved in the election, but the Trump campaign did not conspire with the Russians.
The Senate Intelligence Committee released its own report on Russian interference into the election in 2020, with findings similar to the Mueller report.
The findings dominated the president’s first term, even though he vehemently denied any connection to the Kremlin.
• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.