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Former CIA Director John Brennan, who served under former President Barack Obama, pushed for the so-called “Steele dossier,” which featured salacious material and unfounded allegations about President Donald Trump’s connections to Russia, to be included in an assessment evaluating Russian interference in the 2016 election, according to a review declassified Wednesday.
The CIA, FBI and National Security Agency’s Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) evaluating Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election diverted from intelligence standards and featured some “procedural anomalies,” according to a new lessons-learned review of the assessment that CIA Director John Ratcliffe ordered for declassification Wednesday.
The lessons-learned review determined 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.”
Former CIA director John Brennan pushed for inclusion of the “Steele dossier” in the 2016 Russian interference assessment despite objections, according to a newly declassified review.
Specifically, the new review found that the CIA’s deputy director for analysis said in a December 2016 email to Brennan that including the dossier in any capacity jeopardized “the credibility of the entire paper.”
“Despite these objections, Brennan showed a preference for narrative consistency over analytical soundness,” the new review stated. “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.’”
Brennan served as director of the CIA from March 2013 to January 2017 under the Obama administration.
The dossier originated after law firm Perkins Coie hired opposition research firm Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research into then-presidential candidate Trump in April 2016 on behalf of Trump’s opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and the Democratic National Committee.
Fusion GPS hired former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, who composed the so-called “Steele dossier.” The document included scandalous and mostly unverified allegations, including details that Trump engaged in sex acts with Russian prostitutes.
Trump has denied the allegations included in the dossier.
Then-CIA Director John Brennan testifies on Capitol Hill in 2016.
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