For years, anyone who questioned whether Washington’s intelligence machinery tilted left was told they were peddling conspiracies.That narrative fell apart on Friday, when CIA Director John Ratcliffe ordered the official retraction or major revision of nineteen intelligence products produced during the Obama years,citing political bias and substandard analytic tradecraft. It’s the first official acknowledgment that America’s most powerful spy agency let politics color its assessments.
"The intelligence products we released to the American people today — produced before my tenure as DCIA — fall short of the high standards of impartiality that CIA must uphold and do not reflect the expertise for which our analysts are renowned," Director Ratcliffesaidin a statement. "There is absolutely no room for bias in our work and when we identify instances where analytic rigor has been compromised, we have a responsibility to correct the record.These actions underscore our commitment to transparency, accountability, and objective intelligence analysis. Our recent successes in Operation ABSOLUTE RESOLVE and Operation MIDNIGHT HAMMER exemplify our dedication to analytic excellence.”
The bombshell came after the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board (PIAB) completed an independent review of hundreds of finished CIA reports spanning the past decade. This period includes Barack Obama’s second term and the Russian collusion hoax.
The PIAB identified nineteen intelligence products that “failed to be independent of political consideration.”Deputy Director Michael Ellis led an internal review that confirmed the findings. Ratcliffe’s response was swift and blunt. “The intelligence products we released to the American people today — produced before my tenure as DCIA — fall short of the high standards of impartiality that CIA must uphold and do not reflect the expertise for which our analysts are renowned,” he said. “There is absolutely no room for bias in our work… These actions underscore our commitment to transparency, accountability, and objective intelligence analysis.”
That’s a rather diplomatic way of saying that Barack Obama’s CIA got caught red-handed playing politics. The agency admitted that at least some of its Obama-era intelligence relied on questionable sourcing, including political activist groups. One report even drew on material from Planned Parenthood, something one official described as “clearly not an appropriate use of CIA resources.” For an organization that prides itself on independence and tradecraft, that revelation is a true humiliation.
CANCELLED: 19@CIAintelligence products officially retracted over “inappropriate insertion of DEI issues" and failure to meet "objectivity" standards, per senior CIA official.@CIADirectorRatcliffe ordered the removal of 17 intelligence products from CIA databases + 2 reports…pic.twitter.com/UdaHp6S8Gh
The implications stretch far beyond nineteen flawed reports. The time frame under review encompasses the same period that produced the now infamous 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) — the document commissioned in the last days of the Obama administration and released just before Donald Trump’s inauguration, alleging Russian interference in the 2016 election.
That assessment relied heavily on the debunked Steele Dossier and cast a dark cloud over President Trump’s first term, giving Democrats cover to claim Trump was an illegitimate president.
If nearly twenty reports from that same era failed to meet analytic standards due to political bias, the question is no longer whether the intelligence community was politicized; it’s how deep the rot went.
However, Democrats clearly aren’t convinced.
Source: ZeroHedge News