WASHINGTON — A newly released House Intelligence Committee report accuses former CIA Director John Brennan of disregarding warnings from experienced agency officers and pushing the publication of a flawed 2017 intelligence report that claimed Russian President Vladimir Putin aimed to help Donald Trump win the 2016 election.
According to the report, Brennan and other top intelligence officials — including former FBI Director James Comey and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper — allegedly included information from the discredited Steele Dossier in the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA), despite objections from senior analysts who questioned its credibility.
The committee found that the CIA buried intelligence suggesting the Kremlin was preparing for a possible Hillary Clinton victory, and that only a vague and unverified fragment supported the claim that Putin favored Trump.
Former Democratic Congresswoman and current Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard criticized the move, calling it “the most egregious weaponization and politicization of intelligence in American history.” She accused Brennan and others of working with media allies to undermine Trump’s presidency and described the Russia investigation as a deliberate effort to delegitimize the 2016 election results.
The report, originally compiled in 2020 and made public Wednesday, raises concerns over the integrity of intelligence practices during a pivotal moment in recent U.S. political history.
