Old News About Russiagate Being Treated Like “a Bombshell”

Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) John Brennan (L) talks with the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper before US President Barack Obama spoke about the National Security Agency (NSA) and intelligence agencies surveillance techniques at the US Department of Justice in Washington, DC, January 17, 2014. Obama trimmed the powers of the secretive US eavesdropping agency Friday by calling for new privacy safeguards, but allowed bulk phone data sweeps to continue as an anti-terror tool. In a long-awaited speech outlining changes to programs exposed by Edward Snowden, Obama also said he had halted National Security Agency (NSA) spy taps targeting friendly world leaders. AFP PHOTO / Jim WATSON (Photo credit should read JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)

Yes, I am going to say, “I told you so.” The New York Post report on a new CIA review of the December 2016 Intelligence Community Assessment on Russian Election Interference (ICA), reminds me of Claude Rains, who played the police captain in Casablanca… He was shocked to discover gambling in the casino.

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.

Here is the link to the CIA report on Russiagate.

So, I am taking this opportunity for a victory lap. I wrote an article debunking the 2016 Intelligence Community Assessment on Russian Election Interference (ICA), in January 2017 on Pat Lang’s blog, but it is now inactive and I can’t find the link. However, thanks to Perplexity AI, here’s an accurate summary of what I wrote 8 years ago:

Larry Johnson is a former CIA analyst and commentator who has written critically about the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment of Russian activities and intentions in recent U.S. elections, particularly regarding the 2016 presidential election. In his writings, Johnson has challenged the conclusions of the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) titled “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections.” He argues that the report is politically motivated, lacks solid evidence, and is based on subjective judgments rather than hard intelligence.
Key points from Larry Johnson’s perspective include:
• Skepticism of the ICA’s Conclusions: Johnson asserts that the ICA, which assessed with “high confidence” that Russia sought to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process and favored Donald Trump, is not supported by concrete evidence. He contends that the report relies heavily on assumptions and analytic judgments rather than verifiable intelligence.
• Critique of Methodology: Johnson has argued that the ICA was not a consensus product of all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies, as sometimes claimed, but rather the work of a handpicked group of analysts from three agencies (CIA, FBI, NSA) under the direction of then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.
• Political Influence Alleged: He suggests that the assessment was shaped by political bias within the intelligence leadership during the Obama administration, and that dissenting views were excluded from the final report.
• Lack of Technical Evidence: Johnson points out that the ICA did not present technical forensic evidence to substantiate claims of Russian hacking or direct coordination with the Trump campaign.

I nailed the fact that the ICA was, “the work of a handpicked group of analysts from three agencies (CIA, FBI, NSA) under the direction of then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper“, eight years ago. Glad the media finally caught up.

I was interviewed on Tuesday by Glenn Diesen about the Iran/Israel war. During the interview I made a mistake on the timeline regarding when the battleship New Jersey launched shells into the Bekaa Valley and the bombing of the Marines in October 1983. What I should have said, to be more precise, was that the US Marines were supporting the Lebanese factions that were killing Shia. My basic point still holds–we provoked that. Anyway, enjoy the chat: