A newly declassified CIA memo released on Wednesday casts doubt on the 2017 intelligence assessment that concluded Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election to help Donald Trump win. The memo, commissioned by then-CIA Director John Ratcliffe, challenges the methods and evidence used in that report.
“This report doesn’t change any of the underlying evidence — in fact, it doesn’t even address any of that evidence,” said Brian Taylor, director of the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs at Syracuse University.
Ratcliffe, a known Trump ally and vocal critic of the Russia investigation during his time in Congress, directed this “lessons-learned” review to scrutinize the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russian President Vladimir Putin “aspired” to help Trump win the 2016 election.
The eight-page memo criticizes the timeline, tradecraft, and sources used in the 2017 report, particularly the reliance on unverified information, including parts of the Democratic-funded Steele dossier compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele.
The memo states that the inclusion of a two-page Steele dossier summary “implicitly elevated unsubstantiated claims to the status of credible supporting evidence, compromising the analytical integrity of the judgment.”
Still, despite these criticisms, the CIA memo does not directly contradict any of the previous intelligence findings. It acknowledges a “politically charged environment” but does not offer new evidence to dispute the well-documented conclusion that Russia interfered in the election in Trump’s favor.
This effort is seen as part of a broader initiative by Trump and his allies to reshape the narrative around the Russia investigation, which resulted in criminal indictments and heavily impacted Trump’s first term in office.
“Good intelligence analysts will tell you their job is to speak truth to power,” Taylor said. “If they tell the leader what he wants to hear, you often get flawed intelligence.”
Multiple investigations — including one by the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee in 2020 and Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe — concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to benefit Trump, and that the Trump campaign welcomed the assistance, even though a criminal conspiracy wasn’t established.
Ratcliffe, now overseeing declassifications across several sensitive topics, has previously released documents related to the Kennedy assassinations and the origins of COVID-19.
This recent report, while offering criticism of how intelligence was processed, does not dispute the core conclusion that Russia preferred Trump and acted to support his election bid.