By Sama Marwan,
An unclassified memo issued by the CIA has criticized the intelligence agencies’ conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election because it wanted then-Republican candidate Donald Trump to win.
According to the Associated Press, the memo was written at the direction of CIA Director John Ratcliffe, a Trump loyalist who had criticized the investigation while serving in Congress. The memo identified flaws in the 2017 intelligence assessment, which concluded that the Russian government, under the direction of President Vladimir Putin, had launched a covert influence campaign to help Trump win.
The memo does not address the numerous investigations conducted since then, including a 2020 report by the Senate Intelligence Committee led by Republicans, which reached the same conclusion regarding Russia’s influence and motivations.
The Associated Press reported that the eight-page document is part of an ongoing effort by Trump and close allies leading key government agencies to revisit the history of the Russian interference probe—a probe that led to several criminal indictments and cast a shadow over much of Trump’s first presidential term. Yet it also fueled unresolved grievances and contributed to Trump’s deep mistrust of the intelligence community.
The report represents the latest attempt by Ratcliffe to challenge the processes and decision-making of intelligence agencies during the investigation into “Russian interference.”
The AP explained that Ratcliffe, who was a strong supporter of Trump in Congress and who aggressively questioned former Special Counsel Robert Mueller during his 2019 congressional testimony about Russian interference in the U.S. elections, later used his position as Director of National Intelligence to declassify Russian intelligence information that allegedly contained damaging material about Democrats during the 2016 election—even though he acknowledged it might not be true.
