A high-ranking cybersecurity expert within the intelligence community was left reeling in 2019 when he stumbled upon the unsettling fact that the discredited Steele dossier had shaped a key assessment on Russian interference in the 2016 election. This revelation, buried for years, is now seeing the light of day through declassified emails that expose a deep fracture in the integrity of that process.
According to Just the News, these emails capture the raw shock of a deputy national intelligence officer for cybersecurity at the National Intelligence Council, who learned by chance that the dossier influenced the December 2016 Intelligence Community Assessment. The document, made public in January 2017, was meant to be a definitive take on Russian meddling, yet it incorporated material even some insiders deemed utterly unreliable.
The officer’s reaction was blunt and telling as he wrote, “At no time in my IC career has ‘dossier’ material ever been represented to me in a work setting as something the NIC viewed as credible, or that was influential in crafting NIC products.” Such a statement cuts to the core of a flawed process, where unverified claims were elevated despite clear red flags, undermining trust in the very institutions meant to protect our democratic systems.
The emails, declassified under Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, reveal the officer’s distress after an accidental discovery triggered by a Freedom of Information Act request in September 2019. He was instructed by another official, referencing election security head Shelby Pierson, to search for links between the dossier and the assessment, hinting at its unexpected role.
This bombshell led the officer to question whether he had been deliberately kept in the dark during his tenure from 2015 to 2019, a period when he worked closely on election security issues. He noted that if the dossier indeed swayed the assessment, it suggested either intentional exclusion by his superiors or a gross miscommunication within the intelligence hierarchy.
His concern deepened as he admitted never encountering dossier materials in a professional context until this revelation, despite his deep involvement in related analyses. The idea that such dubious content could underpin a critical judgment like the 2016 assessment raises serious questions about the analytical rigor applied at the highest levels.
A recent CIA “lessons learned” review, ordered by Director John Ratcliffe and released in July, sharply criticized the decision to include the Steele dossier in the assessment, stating it “ran counter to fundamental tradecraft principles.” This damning conclusion points to a failure by agency leaders, including then-CIA Director John Brennan, to prioritize analytical integrity over a predetermined narrative.
The review detailed how Brennan, alongside FBI officials like James Comey, pushed for the dossier’s inclusion despite objections from senior CIA managers who warned it could taint the entire report’s credibility. Their insistence on adding a two-page summary as an annex, with a reference in the main body, implicitly lent weight to unverified claims about Russian intentions to favor Trump in 2016.
This move marginalized the National Intelligence Council, which was sidelined until hours before the assessment’s publication, a stark deviation from standard protocol. Such actions suggest a troubling willingness to bend the process to fit a story, rather than letting the facts dictate the conclusions.
Further scrutiny reveals the FBI’s role, with Comey and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe advocating for the dossier’s inclusion despite its lack of corroboration, a fact later confirmed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s inability to establish Trump-Russia collusion. Even the FBI’s own efforts, including offering Steele up to $1 million to verify his claims, yielded nothing but dead ends.
DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s findings compounded the issue, identifying 17 significant errors in the FBI’s surveillance of Trump campaign associate Carter Page, driven largely by reliance on the dossier. Declassified footnotes also hint at the possibility of Russian disinformation tainting the document, a risk the FBI seemingly ignored.
The dossier’s primary source, Igor Danchenko, contradicted its core allegations, and prior FBI investigations had flagged him as a potential national security threat due to suspected ties to Russian intelligence. Yet, this shaky foundation was allowed to prop up a narrative that shaped public and political discourse for years.
These revelations, coupled with a criminal referral by Ratcliffe to FBI Director Kash Patel regarding Brennan’s actions, underscore a pressing need for accountability within our intelligence apparatus. When agency heads prioritize agenda over evidence, as seen in Brennan’s dismissal of valid concerns, the public’s trust in these institutions erodes.
The CIA review’s critique of the “high confidence” judgment that Russia aimed to help Trump, despite NSA’s more cautious “moderate confidence” stance under Admiral Mike Rogers, further exposes the rush to judgment. It’s a stark reminder that narrative-driven assessments can distort reality, leaving lasting damage to both policy and perception.
Ultimately, this saga is a cautionary tale about the dangers of allowing unverified claims to infiltrate critical intelligence work, especially in matters as consequential as election integrity. Restoring faith in these processes demands transparency, rigorous standards, and a firm rejection of political bias masquerading as analysis.
