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Former CIA Director John Brennan, who served under former President Barack Obama, pushed for the so-called “Steele dossier,” which featured salacious material and unfounded allegations about President Donald Trump’s connections to Russia, to be included in an assessment evaluating Russian interference in the 2016 election, according to a review declassified Wednesday.
The CIA, FBI and National Security Agency’s Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) evaluating Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election diverted from intelligence standards and featured some “procedural anomalies,” according to a new lessons-learned review of the assessment that CIA Director John Ratcliffe ordered for declassification Wednesday.
The lessons-learned review determined that the “decision by agency heads to include the Steele Dossier in the ICA ran counter to fundamental tradecraft principles and ultimately undermined the credibility of a key judgment.”
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Specifically, the new review found that the CIA’s deputy director for analysis said in a December 2016 email to Brennan that including the dossier in any capacity jeopardized “the credibility of the entire paper.”
“Despite these objections, Brennan showed a preference for narrative consistency over analytical soundness,” the new review stated. “When confronted with specific flaws in the Dossier by the two mission center leaders—one with extensive operational experience and the other with a strong analytic background—he appeared more swayed by the Dossier’s general conformity with existing theories than by legitimate tradecraft concerns. Brennan ultimately formalized his position in writing, stating that ‘my bottomline is that I believe that the information warrants inclusion in the report.’”
Brennan served as director of the CIA from March 2013 to January 2017 under the Obama administration.
The dossier originated after law firm Perkins Coie hired opposition research firm Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research into then-presidential candidate Trump in April 2016 on behalf of Trump’s opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and the Democratic National Committee.
Fusion GPS hired former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, who composed the so-called “Steele dossier.” The document included scandalous and mostly unverified allegations, including details that Trump engaged in sex acts with Russian prostitutes.
Trump has denied the allegations included in the dossier.
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Brennan could not be reached for comment by Fox News Digital.
The lessons-learned review also found fault with other tradecraft employed while drafting the ICA, including a rushed timeline and atypical involvement of agency heads while compiling the assessment.
“While agency heads sometimes review controversial analytic assessments before publication, their direct engagement in the ICA’s development was highly unusual in both scope and intensity,” the review said. “This exceptional level of senior involvement likely influenced participants, altered normal review processes, and ultimately compromised analytic rigor.”
Additionally, the review said that Brennan sent a note to intelligence community analysts one day before their only session coordinating on the ICA that he had met with then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and then-FBI Director James Comey. The review said that Brennan told the CIA workforce that “there is strong consensus among us on the scope, nature, and intent of Russian interference in our recent Presidential election.”
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“While officers involved in drafting the ICA consistently said they did not feel pressured to reach specific conclusions, Brennan’s premature signaling that agency heads had already reached consensus before the ICA was even coordinated risked stifling analytic debate,” the review said.
Ratcliffe ordered the “lessons-learned” review of the ICA earlier in 2025 specifically focused on the ICA’s assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin “aspired” to assist Trump win the 2016 election, and declassified the results Wednesday in an attempt to promote transparency, according to a CIA news release.
“Agency heads at the time created a politically charged environment that triggered an atypical analytic process around an issue essential to our democracy,” Ratcliffe said in a Wednesday statement. “Under my watch, I am committed to ensuring that our analysts have the ability to deliver unvarnished assessments that are free from political influence.”
