The Controversy Surrounding the 2016 Intelligence Community Assessment on Russian Election Interference, By Charles Taylor and Chris Knight (Florida)
A recent CIA review has reignited debate over the 2016 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) that claimed Russia interfered in the U.S. presidential election to aid Donald Trump. The review, titled "Tradecraft Review of the 2016 Intelligence Community Assessment on Russian Election Interference," conducted by career professionals at the CIA's Directorate of Analysis, has raised serious questions about the integrity of the original assessment. It alleges that the process was marred by procedural irregularities, undue influence from senior officials, and the controversial inclusion of the discredited Steele dossier. This post explores the key findings of the review, the implications of its claims, and the broader context of this politically charged controversy.
In December 2016, just weeks before the end of President Barack Obama's administration, he ordered an intelligence assessment to investigate alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The resulting ICA, published in January 2017, concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin had "aspired" to help Donald Trump win the presidency. The assessment was spearheaded by then-CIA Director John Brennan, FBI Director James Comey, and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. It became a cornerstone of the narrative that Russia colluded with the Trump campaign, fuelling years of investigations, including Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe, which ultimately found no evidence of such collusion.
The ICA was presented as a definitive product of the Intelligence Community (IC), but the new CIA review, commissioned by former CIA Director John Ratcliffe in May, suggests that the process behind it was deeply flawed. The review identifies multiple issues, including a rushed timeline, limited agency involvement, and excessive interference by senior officials, which together undermined the credibility of the assessment.
Key Findings of the CIA Review
1. Procedural Anomalies and a Rushed Timeline
The review highlights a "highly compressed production timeline" that deviated from standard IC practices. Typically, formal assessments of such complexity and political sensitivity take months to prepare. However, the ICA was drafted in less than a week, with only a few days for coordination and review. This was particularly problematic during the holiday season, when many stakeholders received drafts just before or during a single in-person coordination meeting on December 19, 2016. The use of hardcopy drafts, which had to be physically transported between agencies, further complicated the process and limited thorough review.
The review argues that this rushed timeline "likely biased the overall review process" and created an environment where analysts felt "jammed" by time constraints. Such conditions, it suggests, compromised the analytical rigour necessary for an objective assessment.
2. Excessive Involvement of Agency Heads
One of the most striking findings is the "highly unusual" level of involvement by Brennan, Comey, and Clapper in the ICA's development. The review notes that their "direct engagement" was unprecedented in both scope and intensity, potentially stifling analytic debate. CIA analysts, handpicked by Brennan, operated under intense scrutiny from these senior officials, which may have pressured them to align with a predetermined narrative.
The review cites an instance where a CIA analytic manager noted that other managers opted out of the review process due to the "politically charged environment" and the atypical prominence of agency leadership. This suggests that the involvement of high-ranking officials may have discouraged open debate and objective analysis, raising questions about the integrity of the final product.
3. Inclusion of the Steele Dossier
Perhaps the most contentious issue is the inclusion of the Steele dossier, a collection of unverified and uncorroborated reports compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele, who was working for the Hillary Clinton campaign. The dossier alleged that Russia possessed compromising material on Trump, including salacious claims that were later widely discredited.
Despite strong objections from the ICA's primary authors and senior CIA Russia experts, including the two senior leaders of the CIA's Russia mission centre, Brennan insisted on including a two-page summary of the dossier as an annex to the ICA. The review notes that these experts warned that the dossier did not meet basic tradecraft standards and that its inclusion risked undermining the credibility of the entire assessment. The CIA's Deputy Director for Analysis even cautioned Brennan in an email on December 29, 2016, that including the dossier could jeopardize the report's integrity.
The review suggests that Brennan's decision reflected a "preference for narrative consistency over analytical soundness." By referencing the dossier in the main body of the ICA as supporting evidence for the claim that Putin aspired to help Trump, the assessment implicitly lent credibility to unsubstantiated claims, further compromising its objectivity.
4. Exclusion of Key Intelligence Agencies
Another significant deviation from standard procedure was the exclusion of 13 out of the 17 intelligence agencies, including the Defense Intelligence Agency and the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research. The review notes that limiting coordination to only the CIA, FBI, NSA, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) was "markedly unconventional" for an assessment of such importance. This exclusion limited opportunities for diverse perspectives and thorough tradecraft review.
Additionally, the National Intelligence Council (NIC), which typically oversees the drafting and review of formal IC assessments, was sidelined. The NIC did not see the final draft until just hours before its publication, a significant departure from standard practices that further undermined the process's credibility.
5. Media Leaks and Cognitive Bias
The review points to media leaks before the ICA's completion that may have influenced its findings. On December 9, 2016, major outlets like The Washington Post and The New York Times reported that the IC had already concluded with "high confidence" that Russia intervened to help Trump win. These leaks, which cited unnamed U.S. officials, risked creating an "anchoring" effect, a cognitive bias where analysts may have felt pressure to align their findings with the publicly reported narrative rather than conducting an independent analysis.
The findings of the CIA review have significant implications for public trust in the U.S. intelligence community and the politicisation of intelligence processes. The allegations that senior officials manipulated the ICA to push a narrative of Trump-Russia collusion suggest a deliberate effort to shape public and political perceptions during a critical transition period, to undermine the Trump presidency. Former CIA Director John Ratcliffe, in an interview, described the process as an attempt to "scr*w Trump" by creating an authoritative assessment that could not be easily challenged due to its classified nature.
The inclusion of the Steele dossier, in particular, has long been a point of contention. Its use in the ICA lent undue legitimacy to unverified claims, which fuelled media coverage and political discourse for years. The subsequent Mueller investigation, which consumed much of Trump's first two years in office, found no evidence of collusion, raising questions about the validity of the ICA's conclusions and the motives behind its production.
The review also underscores broader concerns about the politicisation of intelligence. The excessive involvement of agency heads and the exclusion of key agencies suggest that the process was driven more by political objectives than by a commitment to objective analysis. This has led to calls for greater transparency and accountability in how intelligence assessments are conducted, particularly on issues with significant political implications.
The controversy over the 2016 ICA must be viewed in the context of the highly polarised political climate of the time. The 2016 election was marked by intense partisan divisions, and allegations of foreign interference became a flashpoint in the debate over the legitimacy of Trump's victory. The ICA's release, followed by years of investigations and media scrutiny, contributed to a narrative that shaped public opinion and political discourse.
The CIA's Tradecraft Review of the 2016 ICA has brought renewed scrutiny to a pivotal moment in recent U.S. political history. Its findings suggest that the assessment was compromised by procedural flaws, undue influence from senior officials, and the inclusion of unverified information. The actions of Brennan, Comey, and Clapper appear to have undermined the credibility of the intelligence community's work. Deep State corruption runs, well, "deep"!
"A bombshell new CIA review of the Obama administration's spy agencies' assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election to help Donald Trump was deliberately corrupted by then-CIA Director John Brennan, FBI Director James Comey and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who were "excessively involved" in its drafting, and rushed its completion in a "chaotic," "atypical" and "markedly unconventional" process that raised questions of a "potential political motive."
Further, Brennan's decision to include the discredited Steele dossier, over the objections of the CIA's most senior Russia experts, "undermined the credibility" of the assessment.
The "Tradecraft Review of the 2016 Intelligence Community Assessment [ICA] on Russian Election Interference" was conducted by career professionals at the CIA's Directorate of Analysis and was commissioned by CIA Director John Ratcliffe in May.
The "lessons-learned review" found that, on December 6, 2016, six weeks before his presidency ended, Barack Obama ordered the assessment, which concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin "aspired" to help Trump win the election.
The review identified "multiple procedural anomalies" that undermined the credibility of the ICA, including "a highly compressed production timeline, stringent compartmentation, and excessive involvement of agency heads."
It also questioned the exclusion of key intelligence agencies and said media leaks may have influenced analysts to conform to a false narrative of Trump-Russia collusion.
"The rushed timeline to publish both classified and unclassified versions before the presidential transition raised questions about a potential political motive behind the White House tasking and timeline."
The review found that Brennan directed the compilation of the ICA, and that his, Comey's and Clapper's "direct engagement in the ICA's development was highly unusual in both scope and intensity" and "risked stifling analytic debate."
Brennan handpicked the CIA analysts to compile the ICA and involved only the ODNI, CIA, FBI and NSA, excluding 13 of the then-17 intelligence agencies.
He sidelined the National Intelligence Council and forced the inclusion of the discredited Steele dossier despite objections of the authors and senior CIA Russia experts, so as to push a false narrative that Russia secured Trump's 2016 victory.
"This was Obama, Comey, Clapper and Brennan deciding 'We're going to screw Trump,'" said Ratcliffe in an exclusive interview.
"It was, 'We're going to create this and put the imprimatur of an IC assessment in a way that nobody can question it.' They stamped it as Russian collusion and then classified it so nobody could see it.
"This led to Mueller [special counsel Robert Mueller's inquiry, which concluded after two years that there was no Trump-Russia collusion]. It put the seal of approval of the intelligence community that Russia was helping Trump and that the Steele dossier was the scandal of our lifetime. It ate up the first two years of his [Trump's first] presidency.
"You see how Brennan and Clapper and Comey manipulated [and] silenced all the career professionals and railroaded the process."
The CIA review notes that, before work even began on the ICA, "media leaks suggesting that the Intelligence Community had already reached definitive conclusions risked creating an anchoring." The term "anchoring" refers to a cognitive bias in psychology and suggests that the media leaks may have influenced the analysts working on the ICA to shape their findings to conform with the leaked narrative rather than conducting an objective analysis.
On December 9, 2016, both the Washington Post and New York Times reported the IC had "concluded with high confidence that Russia had intervened specifically to help Trump win the election."
The Post cited an unnamed US official describing this as the IC's "consensus view."
The "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," the review found. "CIA's primary authors had less than a week to draft the assessment and less than two days to formally coordinate it with IC peers before it entered the formal review process at CIA on December 20."
When the draft ICA was completed and sent for review to Intelligence Community "stakeholders," the timeline was "compressed to just a handful of days during a holiday week [which] created numerous challenges …
"Multiple IC stakeholders said they felt 'jammed' by the compressed timeline. Most got their first look at the hardcopy draft and underlying sensitive reporting just before or at the only in-person coordination meeting that was held on December 19 to conduct a line-by-line review."
Drafts of the ICA were only permitted in hard copy, so needed to be hand-carried between various spy agency buildings. "The pressing timeline and limitations of hardcopy review likely biased the overall review process."
The "direct engagement" of agency heads Brennan, Comey and Clapper in the ICA's development was "highly unusual in both scope and intensity. This exceptional level of senior involvement likely influenced participants, altered normal review processes, and ultimately compromised analytic rigor.
"One 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."
The review criticizes the ICA for including the Steele dossier, a salacious and discredited opposition-research product written by former British spy Christopher Steele, who was working for the Hillary Clinton campaign, which claimed Russia possessed sexually compromising blackmail material on Trump.
Despite the fact that "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," Brennan insisted it be included.
"CIA's Deputy Director for Analysis (DDA) warned in an email to Brennan on December 29 that including it in any form risked 'the credibility of the entire paper.'"
But Brennan responded that "my bottom line is that I believe that the information warrants inclusion in the report."
Brennan showed "a preference for narrative consistency over analytical soundness," said the review.
"When confronted with specific flaws in the Dossier by the two mission center leaders — one with extensive operational experience and the other with a strong analytic background — he appeared more swayed by the Dossier's general conformity with existing theories than by legitimate tradecraft concerns."
"The decision by agency heads to include the Steele Dossier in the ICA ran counter to fundamental tradecraft principles and ultimately undermined the credibility of a key judgment. The ICA authors first learned of the Dossier, and FBI leadership's insistence on its inclusion, on December 20 — the same day the largely coordinated draft was entering the review process at CIA," according to the review. "FBI leadership made it clear that their participation in the ICA hinged on the Dossier's inclusion and, over the next few days, repeatedly pushed to weave references to it throughout the main body of the ICA."
In the end, the spy agency heads decided to include a two-page summary of the Steele dossier as an "annex" to the ICA, with a disclaimer that the material was not used "to reach the analytic conclusions."
However, the review says that "by placing a reference to the annex material in the main body of the ICA as the fourth supporting bullet for the judgment that Putin 'aspired' to help Trump win, the ICA implicitly elevated unsubstantiated claims to the status of credible supporting evidence, compromising the analytical integrity of the judgment."
The review is critical of the decision by Brennan, Clapper and Comey to "marginalize the National Intelligence Council (NIC), departing significantly from standard procedures for formal IC assessments."
"The NIC did not receive or even see the final draft until just hours before the ICA was due to be published … Typically, the NIC maintains control over drafting assignments, coordination, and review processes."
The review also quotes from Brennan's memoir "Undaunted," in which he revealed that he "established crucial elements of the process with the White House before NIC involvement, stating he informed them that CIA would 'take the lead drafting the report' and that coordination would be limited to 'ODNI, CIA, FBI, and NSA.' "
The review says such "departures from standard procedure not only limited opportunities for coordination and thorough tradecraft review, but also resulted in the complete exclusion of key intelligence agencies from the process. … The decision to entirely shut out the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Department of State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research from any participation in such a high-profile assessment about an adversary's plans and intentions was a significant deviation from typical IC practices.
"It also was markedly unconventional to have Agency heads review and sign off on a draft before it was submitted to the NIC for review. The NIC did not receive or even see the final draft until just hours before the ICA was due to be published."
There was only one meeting at which the IC analysts could coordinate, but one day before the meeting, Brennan sent a note to the CIA workforce saying he had already met with Clapper and Comey and that "there is strong consensus among us on the scope, nature, and intent of Russian interference in our recent Presidential election."
The CIA review concludes: "With analysts operating under severe time constraints, limited information sharing, and heightened senior-level scrutiny, several aspects of tradecraft rigor were compromised — particularly in supporting the judgment that Putin 'aspired' to help Trump win."
The Putin-Trump nexus "struggled to stand on its own" and its inclusion damaged the report because it "risked distracting readers from the more well-documented findings on Putin's strategic objectives …
"The two senior leaders of the CIA mission center responsible for Russia argued jointly against including the 'aspire' judgment. In an email to Brennan on December 30, they stated the judgment should be removed because it was both weakly supported and unnecessary, given the strength and logic of the paper's other findings on intent. They warned that including it would only 'open up a line of very politicized inquiry.' "
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