by WorldTribune Staff, July 2, 2025 Real World News
CIA Director John Ratcliffe on Wednesday released a review which blasts the U.S. intelligence community’s handling of alleged Russian influence in the 2016 election.
Ratcliffe slammed then-CIA Director John Brennan for joining FBI Director James Comey in pushing to include the bogus anti-Trump dossier by British ex-spy Christopher Steele in the intelligence community’s assessment of Russiagate.
CIA Deputy Director Michael Ellis noted that newly-declassified documents show how James Comey, left, and John Brennan ‘personally intervened to insert the Steele dossier’s lies into intelligence analysis. We must have zero tolerance for the weaponization of intelligence.’“Agency heads at the time created a politically charged environment that triggered an atypical analytic process around an issue essential to our democracy,” Ratcliffe said. “Under my watch, I am committed to ensuring that our analysts have the ability to deliver unvarnished assessments that are free from political influence.”
The eight-page “lessons learned” review, dated June 26 – focuses on the December 2016 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) about Russia and the November 2016 election – was put together by the CIA’s Directorate of Analysis (DA) at Ratcliffe’s direction and concluded that “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 review states: “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.”
The review continues: “Despite these objections, Brennan showed a preference for narrative consistency over analytical soundness. 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. Brennan ultimately formalized his position in writing, stating that ‘my bottomline is that I believe that the information warrants inclusion in the report.’ ”
The newly-released CIA review also revealed that “ICA authors first learned of the Dossier, and FBI leadership’s insistence on its inclusion, on 20 December [2016] — the same day the largely coordinated draft was entering the review process at CIA” and that “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.”
CIA Deputy Director Michael Ellis tweeted Tuesday that newly-declassified documents “show how Brennan and Comey personally intervened to insert the Steele dossier’s lies into intelligence analysis. We must have zero tolerance for the weaponization of intelligence.”
The review concludes: “The procedural anomalies that characterized the ICA’s development had a direct impact on the tradecraft applied to its most contentious finding. 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.”
Comey and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe also pushed in December 2016 to include Steele’s debunked dossier in the body of the 2016 ICA on alleged Russian meddling. They were largely thwarted by the NSA and others – yet the dossier was still included in an annex to the assessment.
A two-year investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller “did not establish” any criminal Trump-Russia collusion. In addition, DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz found huge flaws with the FBI’s investigation, including criticizing the “central and essential” role of the Steele dossier in the FBI’s politicized surveillance of former Trump campaign associate Carter Page.
A report by DOJ special counsel John Durham concluded in 2023 that “neither U.S. law enforcement nor the Intelligence Community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.”
Durham also said the “FBI ignored the fact that at no time before, during, or after Crossfire Hurricane were investigators able to corroborate a single substantive allegation in the Steele dossier reporting.”
.@POTUS has trusted me with helping to end weaponization of US intelligence. Today’s report underscores that the 2016 IC Assessment was conducted through an atypical & corrupt process under the politically charged environments of former Dir. Brennan & former FBI Dir. Comey. https://t.co/VXBp3oy6EM
— John Ratcliffe (@DCIARatcliffe) July 2, 2025
Director Ratcliffe: Handling of Steele Dossier by Brennan, Comey compromised CIA ‘tradecraft’ added by Editor Two on July 2, 2025
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