Ex-CIA Director Reveals Internal Division at Spy Agency Over Trump-Russia Intelligence
Former CIA Director John Brennan reveals in a forthcoming book and interview that there was internal division at the spy agency over the level of confidence in an intelligence assessment that Vladimir Putin directed Russia’s election interference in the U.S. specifically to help Donald Trump.
According to The New York Times, Brennan describes in his memoir and in an unaired interview that two senior CIA officials pushed back in early 2017 against analysts’ assessment that they had a high level of confidence about Putin’s motives.
The officials lobbied Brennan for a medium-level confidence rating for the intelligence.
“They came up and talked to me about it and I listened to them because I wanted to make sure I understood exactly what their concerns were,” Brennan told C-SPAN in an interview yet to be aired. “And I encouraged them to talk to the authors of the assessment and determine if the judgment should stay at high confidence or medium confidence.”
An Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) released on Jan. 6, 2017, said that the CIA and FBI had a high level of confidence that the Russian government and Putin directed the election activities in order to help Trump by smearing Hillary Clinton. The National Security Agency had a medium-level confidence rating in the intelligence. (Read more from “Ex-CIA Director Reveals Internal Division at Spy Agency Over Trump-Russia Intelligence” HERE)
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