FILE - President Barack Obama nominates John Brennan, to be CIA director during an event in the East Room at the White House on Jan. 7, 2013, in Washington, D.C. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
According to the report, the ICA was a "high-profile product ordered by the President, directed by senior IC agency heads, and created by just five CIA analysts, using one principal drafter."
"Production of the ICA was subject to unusual directives from the President and senior political appointees, and particularly DCIA," the report states. "The draft was not properly coordinated within CIA or the IC, ensuring it would be published without significant challenges to its conclusions."
The committee found that the five CIA analysts and drafter "rushed" the ICA’s production "in order to publish two weeks before President-elect Trump was sworn-in."
"Hurried coordination and limited access to the draft reduced opportunities for the IC to discover misquoting of sources and other tradecraft concerns," the report states.
The report states that Brennan "ordered the post-election publication of 15 reports containing previously collected but unpublished intelligence, three of which were substandard—containing information that was unclear, of uncertain origin, potentially biased, or implausible—and those became foundational sources for the ICA judgements that Putin preferred Trump over Clinton."
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"The ICA misrepresented these reports as reliable, without mentioning their significant underlying flaws," the committee found.
"One scant, unclear, and unverifiable fragment of a sentence from one of the substandard reports constitutes the only classified information cited to suggest Putin ‘aspired’ to help Trump win," the report states, adding that the ICA "ignored or selectively quoted reliable intelligence reports that challenged-and in some cases undermined—judgments that Putin sought to elect Trump."
The report also states that the ICA "failed to consider plausible alternative explanations of Putin’s intentions indicated by reliable intelligence and observed Russian actions."
The committee also found that two senior CIA officers warned Brennan that "we don’t have direct information that Putin wanted to get Trump elected."
Despite those warnings, the Obama administration moved to publish the ICA.
Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence, during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, July 8, 2025. (Aaron Schwartz/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Meanwhile, Fox News Digital, in 2020, exclusively obtained the declassified transcripts from Obama-era national security officials’ closed-door testimonies before the House Intelligence Committee, in which those officials testified that they had no "empirical evidence" of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia in the 2016 election, but continued to publicly push the "narrative" of collusion.
The House Intelligence Committee, in 2017, conducted depositions of top Obama intelligence officials, including Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, National Security Advisor Susan Rice and Attorney General Loretta Lynch, among others.
The officials’ responses in the transcripts of those interviews align with the results of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation – which found no evidence of criminal coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia in 2016, while not reaching a determination on obstruction of justice.
The transcripts, from 2017 and 2018, revealed top Obama officials were questioned by House Intelligence Committee lawmakers and investigators about whether they had or had seen evidence of such collusion, coordination or conspiracy – the issue that drove the FBI's initial case and later the special counsel probe.
"I never saw any direct empirical evidence that the Trump campaign or someone in it was plotting/conspiring with the Russians to meddle with the election," Clapper testified in 2017. "That’s not to say that there weren’t concerns about the evidence we were seeing, anecdotal evidence.... But I do not recall any instance where I had direct evidence."
Lynch also said she did "not recall that being briefed up to me."
Former President Barack Obama and James Comey on the day he was sworn in as FBI director in 2013. (Reuters)
"To the best of my recollection, there wasn’t anything smoking, but there were some things that gave me pause," she said, according to her transcribed interview, in response to whether she had any evidence of conspiracy. "I don’t recall intelligence that I would consider evidence to that effect that I saw… conspiracy prior to my departure."
When asked whether she had any evidence of "coordination," Rice replied: "I don’t recall any intelligence or evidence to that effect."
When asked about collusion, Rice replied: "Same answer."
Former Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes was asked the same question during his House Intelligence interview.
"I wouldn’t have received any information on any criminal or counterintelligence investigations into what the Trump campaign was doing, so I would not have seen that information," Rhodes said.
When pressed again, he said: "I saw indications of potential coordination, but I did not see, you know, the specific evidence of the actions of the Trump campaign."
FBI LAUNCHES CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS OF JOHN BRENNAN, JAMES COMEY: DOJ SOURCES
Meanwhile, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was not asked that specific question but rather questions about the accuracy and legitimacy of the unverified anti-Trump dossier compiled by ex-British intelligence officer Christopher Steele.
McCabe was asked during his interview in 2017 what was the most "damning or important piece of evidence in the dossier that" he "now knows is true."
McCabe replied: "We have not been able to prove the accuracy of all the information."
"You don’t know if it’s true or not?" a House investigator asked, to which McCabe replied: "That's correct."
November 18, 2011: U.S. President Obama stands with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as he announces that she will travel to Burma, on the sidelines of the ASEAN and East Asia summit in Nusa Dua, on the island of Bali, Indonesia. (AP)
The Obama-era officials have been mum on the new revelations, but a spokesman for Obama on Tuesday made a rare public statement.
"Out of respect for the office of the presidency, our office does not normally dignify the constant nonsense and misinformation flowing out of this White House with a response," Obama spokesman Patrick Rodenbush said in a statement. "But these claims are outrageous enough to merit one."
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"These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction," Obama's spokesman continued. "Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes."
He added: "These findings were affirmed in a 2020 report by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, led by then-Chairman Marco Rubio."
Brooke Singman is a political correspondent and reporter for Fox News Digital, Fox News Channel and FOX Business.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/brennan-directed-publication-implausible-reports-claiming-putin-preferred-trump-2016-house-found