It’s Worse Than We Thought –
DNI John Ratcliffe has declassified the Appendix to the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA). [Source Document Here] The appendix known as “Annex A” was the material the FBI and CIA did not include in the body of the ICA; however, it was used to brief congress. [NOTE: the document quality/clarity is very poor as released]
There was always suspicion that “Annex A” was the ridiculous claims by FBI source Christopher Steele; those suspicions are confirmed today. The ICA was written in late December ’16 & early January 2017, and the purpose was to politicize intelligence by making outlandish claims of the Trump-Russia conspiracy the official position of the U.S intelligence apparatus (CIA, FBI, DOJ and NSA).
The “Annex A” supporting the narrative was made out of claims by Christopher Steele. The two-page document is stunningly obtuse by design; and despite the FBI knowing the purpose of Christopher Steele, the Annex pretends not to know his agenda.
By keeping the ridiculous Steele claims in the annex the FBI was able to use the claims and yet afford themselves plausible deniability under the pretense of non-verification. When James Comey briefed President Trump about the claims he pretended not to know the political intents of the information; and worse still, he covered-up that Clinton’s campaign had paid for the information. A stunningly political move based on deception.
In many ways the refusal of the FBI, CIA and DOJ to admit their knowledge of the material from Chris Steele is the biggest example of how those same agencies were playing politics. None of the Steele claims were based on actual evidence; everything was hearsay, gossip, innuendo and entirely made-up. The agencies knew this and yet they pretended not to know the motives for the fraudulent intelligence.
As bad as it was to not clearly disclose to FISA court the Steele Dossier had been paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign, it was far worse to not disclose this to President-elect (and outgoing President) in the intelligence community assessment.
Deceptive and fraudulent official intelligence documents, purposefully designed to achieve a political agenda, outline a level of serious misconduct even beyond the fabricated claims within the Carter Page FISA application.
The release of this “Annex A” document shows something beyond the willfully blind intentions of James Comey and John Brennan, and speaks to an intentional effort to fabricate claims against the incoming administration on the weakest of possible grounds.
Our research previously outlined how the December 29th, 2016, Joint Analysis Report (JAR) on Russia Cyber Activity was a quickly compiled bunch of nonsense about Russian hacking.
The JAR was followed a week later by the January 7th, 2017, Intelligence Community Assessment. The ICA took the ridiculous construct of the JAR and then overlaid a political narrative that Russia was trying to help Donald Trump.
The ICA was the brain-trust of John Brennan, James Clapper and James Comey. While the majority of content was from the CIA, some of the content within the ICA was written by FBI Agent Peter Strzok who held a unique “insurance policy” interest in how the report could be utilized in 2017. NSA Director Mike Rogers would not sign up to the “high confidence” claims, likely because he saw through the political motives of the report.
(JUNE 2019 – New York Times) […] Mr. Barr wants to know more about the C.I.A. sources who helped inform its understanding of the details of the Russian interference campaign, an official has said. He also wants to better understand the intelligence that flowed from the C.I.A. to the F.B.I. in the summer of 2016.
During the final weeks of the Obama administration, the intelligence community released a declassified assessment that concluded that Mr. Putin ordered an influence campaign that “aspired to help” Mr. Trump’s electoral chances by damaging Mrs. Clinton’s. The C.I.A. and the F.B.I. reported they had high confidence in the conclusion. The National Security Agency, which conducts electronic surveillance, had a moderate degree of confidence. (read more)
Questioning the construct of the ICA is a smart direction to take for a review or investigation. By looking at the intelligence community work-product, it’s likely USAO John Durham will cut through a lot of the chatter and get to the heart of the intelligence motives.
Apparently John Durham is looking into just this aspect: Was the ICA document a politically engineered report stemming from within a corrupt intelligence network?
The importance of that question is rather large. All of the downstream claims about Russian activity, including the Russian indictments promoted by DAG Rod Rosenstein and the Mueller team, are centered around origination claims of illicit Russian activity outlined in the ICA.
If the ICA is a false political document…. then guess what?
Information available as of 29 December 2016 was used in the preparation of this product.Scope: This report includes an analytic assessment drafted and coordinated among The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and The National Security Agency (NSA), which draws on intelligence information collected and disseminated by those three agencies. It covers the motivation and scope of Moscow’s intentions regarding US elections and Moscow’s use of cyber tools and media campaigns to influence US public opinion. The assessment focuses on activities aimed at the 2016 US presidential election and draws on our understanding of previous Russian influence operations. When we use the term “we” it refers to an assessment by all three agencies.