The ICA: Obama's Legacy
If you haven’t seen it already, Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard dropped a bomb on Friday: the DNI’s assessment of key intelligence that was manipulated and withheld from the American public concerning the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) that Russia interfered with the 2016 presidential election to assist Trump.
One of the most notable issues in the new DNI memo is that by soon before the ICA was released in January 2017, the FBI and National Security Agency (NSA) had “low confidence” in attributing the DNC and DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee) data leaks to Russia. In their own words, they lacked “sufficient technical details to correlate the information posted online to Russian state-sponsored actors.”
No surprise there – the details on the alleged “hack and leak” of the DNC and DCCC have always been scant, as the FBI’s assessment on the hacks largely relied on Crowdstrike, a DNC contractor hired by the now-disgraced Clinton Campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann.
But there’s a lot more to the ICA story: fraudulent intelligence, lies to the public, suppression of evidence, and the exclusion of those who questioned the official narrative within the intelligence community. And it all traces back to the demands of Barack Obama.
It starts with a December 9, 2016 meeting at the Obama White House chaired by Susan Rice. In attendance were the most important Obama Administration officials: James Clapper (DNI), Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, various Obama operatives (Lisa Monaco and Ben Rhodes), Assistant General Loretta Lynch and DOJ official Mary McCord, Secretary of State John Kerry and State official Victoria Nuland.
There, intelligence officials were tasked with the creation of an assessment of Russian election meddling “per the President’s request.” After the meeting, and following Obama’s instructions, DNI James Clapper requested the intelligence community form an assessment on “Russian Election Meddling” due on January 9, 2017, just before President-elect Trump took office. While the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) would be classified, an unclassified version would be made for immediate public release.