When President Donald Trump’s stunning 2016 victory shook the nation, officials within the Obama administration embarked on a clandestine operation, manufacturing U.S. intelligence to falsely tie Trump to Moscow. What they didn’t anticipate was that Trump’s own political appointees would inadvertently aid in undermining his presidency and jeopardizing his chances for reelection in 2020.
A meticulous review of recently declassified documents, coupled with exclusive interviews with former Trump officials, reveals a startling truth: key members of Trump’s cabinet and other appointees during his first term shielded the previous administration’s machinations, either deliberately or inadvertently misleading the public into believing the fabricated Russiagate intelligence was genuine.
Figures like former Special Counsel John Durham, former National Security Adviser John Bolton, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and former CIA Director Gina Haspel played a role in dismissing or burying evidence that challenged the foundational document of the Russiagate hoax – the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) prepared in the waning days of the Obama administration.
Astonishingly, Durham, appointed by Attorney General William Barr, halted the declassification and release of crucial exculpatory evidence debunking the ICA on the eve of the 2020 election – a previously unreported development.
The ICA fueled a false narrative that triggered multiple espionage investigations that dogged Trump throughout his first term: the claim that Russian President Vladimir Putin had authorized covert actions to influence the 2016 election in Trump’s favor. A 2018 government review of this document, primarily crafted by Obama’s CIA Director John Brennan and National Intelligence Director James Clapper, found its most explosive assertions were based on “one scant, unclear and unverifiable fragment of a sentence from one of the substandard [intelligence] reports.” It also relied on debunked political dirt purchased by Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
While these Trump-appointed officials didn’t initiate the weaponization of the CIA against Trump, their actions facilitated it by concealing evidence that exposed the Russia interference claims as a fraud. This obfuscation may have inadvertently helped Joe Biden, Obama’s former vice president, secure the presidency in a close race in 2020.
“The Russiagate betrayal continued in plain sight,” lamented former Trump national security adviser J.D. Gordon, noting that some within Trump’s own cabinet allowed him to face scrutiny instead of revealing the concealed information that could have cleared his name before the 2020 election.
The suppression of truth began at least as early as mid-2018. Fred Fleitz, then National Security Adviser John Bolton’s chief of staff, learned that House Intelligence Committee investigators were scrutinizing the raw intelligence underpinning the ICA’s key judgments.
A former CIA analyst himself, Fleitz was intrigued and interviewed CIA analysts and reviewed classified documents at Langley. He then read a draft of a highly classified report in a secure room of the U.S. Capitol.
Fleitz revealed to RealClearInvestigations that he was shocked to discover investigators found numerous intelligence documents demonstrating the ICA’s central conclusion – that Russia “developed a clear preference” for Trump and “aspired to help” him win – was based on flawed and fabricated intelligence. The House investigators found this assessment was partially supported by the Steele dossier, a series of Clinton campaign-funded reports containing baseless accusations linking Trump to the Kremlin, compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele.
“The ICA misrepresented both the significance and credibility of the dossier reports,” the top-secret congressional analysis noted. “The ICA referred to the dossier as ‘Russian plans and intentions,’ falsely implying that the dossier had intelligence value for understanding Moscow’s influence operations.”
Fleitz believed Bolton should be briefed on the unpublished House report, which undermined the prevailing narrative of Trump-Moscow collusion. Upon returning to his West Wing office, Fleitz drafted a synopsis of the review and presented it to his boss.
However, Bolton failed to brief the president. “He didn’t do anything with it. He never told Trump, and I never heard anything about it again,” Fleitz stated.
Had Trump been aware of the revelations from the classified report, Fleitz believes he could have used them to dispel the suspicions surrounding his presidency concerning Russia.
Bolton, facing unrelated criminal charges for mishandling classified documents, did not respond to requests for comment.
Derek Harvey, who worked as a senior analysis adviser with the House Intelligence Committee, explained that Mike Pompeo, as Trump’s first CIA chief, was skeptical of Brennan’s assessment. “We showed him a draft but he didn’t believe it. He said we have to be wrong on a lot of this stuff,” Harvey said.
As a result, cooperation from Pompeo was limited. Repeated attempts to reach Pompeo were unsuccessful.
Gina Haspel, Pompeo’s deputy, appears to have played a more active role in concealing information. As a veteran CIA official placed in charge of the agency’s day-to-day operations, she reportedly disapproved of congressional staffers investigating the CIA’s role in the ICA.
Sources revealed that Haspel ensured the House investigators’ on-site examination, spanning from 2017 to 2020, was closely monitored and tightly controlled. Investigators were restricted to a “read room” at Langley, forced to lock up their laptops and materials each night.
“Haspel didn’t allow them to take even their notes out of their workspace there,” Harvey said. “They couldn’t take anything out of the building.”
Another source familiar with the operation suspected the CIA was “spying on [committee] computers” back on Capitol Hill, reporting concerns to then-committee chairman Devin Nunes. The CIA had tampered with the computers the agency forced them to use, only after they were denied access to any computers in the first four months of their investigation.
“Deliberate technical modifications to the [CIA-issued] computers made the machines unstable and unreliable,” a committee report documented, slowing down investigators’ work. They were repeatedly denied proper computers and software tools, and forced to comb through thousands of pages of intelligence reports in paper form.
Pompeo and Haspel also restricted access to the ICA’s five authors, initially keeping them at arm’s length. “It took nearly five months for committee staff to be allowed to interview the ICA authors,” the internal report stated.
In May 2018, Trump appointed Pompeo as secretary of state and named Haspel as his replacement, with strong support from intelligence community veterans, including John Brennan. Before her confirmation hearing, Brennan signed a letter expressing his “strong support” for Haspel, assuring senators she would produce “unbiased intelligence.”
After taking over the CIA, Haspel locked all drafts of the House Intelligence Committee report in a gun safe inside a vault at CIA headquarters until she left office in January 2021, also impounding examiners’ notes and work materials.
“Gina Haspel buried the report,” Harvey asserted.
Sources indicate that before leaving, Haspel demanded that both Barr and Durham keep the report classified and prevent its release before the 2020 election.
A former senior official at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence described Haspel’s actions as “insane.”
Fleitz characterized her efforts to block the information as “insubordination to a U.S. president.”
Fluent in Russian, Haspel had long been an expert on the Kremlin and held hawkish positions that often clashed with Trump’s policies regarding Moscow.
Haspel also played a role in the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation, approving travel for an agent to meet with an Australian diplomat who claimed a Trump campaign adviser had revealed Russian dirt on Hillary Clinton.
Attempts to reach Haspel were unsuccessful.
Despite these efforts, John Durham, as special counsel, had an opportunity to expose the Obama administration’s actions. However, Durham’s decision to suppress the release of a 44-page report refuting the ICA’s findings until after the 2020 election remains controversial. Trump’s new National Intelligence Director, Tulsi Gabbard, declassified and publicly released the report in July, revealing its significance in the Russiagate hoax.
Durham’s final report, while raising questions about the Russiagate probe, largely ignored the ICA, only mentioning it in a footnote. This omission has led former Trump officials to question the thoroughness of Durham’s investigation.
“John Durham… merely ‘went through the motions,’” stated J.D. Gordon, criticizing Durham’s approach.
“The CIA engaged in a conspiracy to fabricate intelligence against Trump,” Harvey declared. “They were effectively running an intelligence op targeting his campaign and presidency.”
The ICA, he noted, was strategically used as a pretext for numerous investigations that crippled Trump’s presidency.
