Overview

• CIA Director John Ratcliffe last week declassified an internal tradecraft review of the 2016 Intelligence Community Assessment on Russian election interference.
• The report shows that Brennan overrode career analysts to include the unverified Steele dossier—opposition research funded by the Clinton campaign and later fined by the FEC—in the main assessment.
• Brennan’s decision contradicts his May 2017 sworn congressional testimony denying that the dossier formed part of the ICA’s intelligence corpus.
• Ratcliffe described the original 2016 assessment process under Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey as “atypical and corrupt,” citing political pressure that sidelined established analytic tradecraft.
• The disclosures have drawn media scrutiny and prompted Justice Department officials to assess whether Brennan’s testimony may amount to perjury.