CIA Review Finds Obama Officials Manipulated 2016 Russia Intelligence

A newly declassified CIA review commissioned in 2025 has revealed that top officials in the Obama administration, including John Brennan, James Comey, and James Clapper, played an excessive and direct role in shaping the 2016 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) that alleged Russian interference to aid Donald Trump. The review found that the ICA was rushed through in a chaotic and unconventional manner, with a compressed timeline and exclusion of 13 of the 17 intelligence agencies, raising questions about political motives behind the assessment. Brennan handpicked analysts and mandated inclusion of the discredited Steele dossier despite objections from senior CIA Russia experts, which undermined the credibility of the report. The process sidelined career professionals, stifled analytic debate, and may have been influenced by media leaks, ultimately fueling the Trump-Russia collusion narrative that led to prolonged investigations and partisan hearings. CIA Director John Ratcliffe condemned the manipulation as a politically charged scheme to damage President Trump’s legitimacy, confirming long-held conservative suspicions about the origins of the Russia collusion hoax. These revelations highlight significant procedural anomalies and political interference in intelligence assessments during the 2016 presidential transition.