In July, ODNI declassified and released 2017 HPSCI(Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence) Majority staff report regarding "Russia's Influence Campaign Targeting the 2016 US Presidential Election". Below is the link to ODNI press release:
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President Obama directed the creation of this January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment after President Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, and it served as the basis for what was essentially a years-long coup against the duly elected President of the United States, subverting the will of the American people and attempting to delegitimize Donald Trump’s presidency.
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The declassified 46-page report in PDF format can be downloaded via the link below:
I'm archiving its text to make it searchable here. This is part 3.
One scant, unclear, and unverifiable fragment of a sentence from a single HUMINT report - published under DCIA Brennan's December 2016 order - constitutes the only classified information cited by the ICA for the judgment that Putin "aspired to help Trump's chances of victory when possible." The ICA did not cite any report where Putin directly indicated helping Trump win was the objective. That judgment rested on a questionable interpretation of this one unclear fragment of a sentence.(redacted)
The unclear fragment (shown in bold) is part of a sentence in a (redacted) that reads:
(redacted) "Putin had made this decision [to leak DNC emails] after he had come to believe that the Democratic nominee had better odds of winning the U.S. presidential election, and that [candidate Trump], whose victory Putin was counting on, most likely would not be able to pull off a convincing victory."(redacted)
A senior CIA operations officer said of the fragment, "We don't know what was meant by that" and "five people read it five ways."(redacted)
The significance of this fragment to the ICA case that Putin "aspired" for candidate Trump to win cannot be overstated. The major "high confidence" judgment of the ICA rests on one opinion about a text fragment with uncertain meaning, that may be a garble, and for which it is not clear how it was obtained. This text - which would not have been published without DCIA's orders to do so - is cited using only one interpretation of its meaning and without considering alternative interpretations.(redacted)
The report containing the fragment did not directly say or imply that Putin "developed a preference for Trump" nor did it say Putin ordered his intelligence services to "assist Trump's chances of victory when possible."(redacted)
The ICA presented only one interpretation of the unclear fragment, and does so without following ICD 203 directives to "properly distinguish between underlying intelligence information and analysts' assumptions and judgments" and without "incorporating analysis of alternative explanations."(redacted)
(redacted) The ICA does not address the source's motivations, which were in part driven by a strong dislike for Putin and his regime, and that the source had an anti-Trump bias, according to CIA officers.(redacted)
The ICA judgment on Putin's thoughts about helping candidate Trump does not stand if the single interpretation of the fragment is wrong, because there is no other intelligence corroborating it, and in any case, viable - perhaps more likely - alternative interpretations of the fragment exist.
None of the confirmed Russian activities - leaks, public statements, social media messaging, and traditional propaganda - corroborate the ICA interpretation of the fragment, because these activities were all consistent with Putin's objectives to undermine faith in US democracy, without regard for candidate Trump's fate.
DCIA Overruled CIA Professionals to Publish and Cite the Ambiguous Fragment. CIA officers in the component running Russia operations described how two versions of the report - one without the fragment and one with - were published as the ICA was being written.
Experienced CIA officers responsible for Russia reporting - evaluating raw intelligence and ensuring that HUMINT reporting meets the threshold for publication - initially omitted the confusing fragment from the first version of the report, which was published on 20 December 2016.(redacted)
DCIA countermanded their decision, however, and ordered that the fragment be included so that it could be cited in the ICA. A revised report was published on 28 December 2016.(redacted)
A senior CIA operations officer described concerns about relying upon unclear reporting as the only evidence for the significant judgment that Putin "aspired" to help Trump.
The officer explained that, while most of the ICA was well done, "ideally they should have eliminated the political judgment" because the fragment lacked the clarity needed to support such a significant claim.(redacted)
(redacted) The same officer said that, together with another senior colleague, the two officers argued to DCIA that "We don't have direct information that Putin wanted to get Trump elected" and therefore the judgment that Putin was counting on Trump's victory should be removed from the ICA or the ICA should be changed."(redacted)
The ICA Text Failed to Acknowledge the Ambiguity and Uncertain Origin of the Fragment. Despite the "single source" significance of the fragment to the thesis on Putin's intentions, the ICA fails to "properly express and explain uncertainties associated with major analytic judgments” as required by ICD 203. This judgment had serious implications for confidence in US democracy, and would be considered a "major analytic judgment" by IC standards.(redacted)
The ICA used an abbreviated description of the source that, without further mention of the problems associated with the fragment, misleads leads the reader to conclude that that Putin wanted Trump to win. Contrary to ICD 203 guidance, the ICA fails to explain the misgivings of CIA professionals about the lack of clarity of the fragment, the possibility of other interpretations of it, that fragment does not actually say Putin "aspired to help Trump" or that it is not known how the information was acquired.(redacted)
(redacted) The ICA test "We assess the influence campaign aspired to help [Trump's] chances of victory when possible" is supported using an abbreviated source description: "The established source with secondhand access reported that Putin was counting on the President-elect's victory ..."(redacted)
This citation leaves out clear and important context flags from the raw intelligence report (see box "Context Warnings").(redacted)
What the Raw Intelligence Says: Context Warnings
(redacted) The identified subsource of paragraphs two and three had authoritative insight into (redacted), but the exact circumstances in which the subsource obtained the information on Putin's plans and were not explicitly clear." (redacted)
The context statement opens up a number of possibilities affecting reliability of the information that ICD 203 directs should be explained to the reader. The ICA failed to clarify:(redacted)
(redacted) The source did not say that President Putin preferred candidate Trump or that he wanted to
help him win.(redacted) It is not known how the subsource obtained the information and thus whether the fragment reflected the subsource's opinion of Putin's inner thoughts, Putin's actual statements made to the subsource, or some third-person's opinions relayed to the subsource who then relayed these to the established source.(redacted)
(redacted) The key sentence fragment used to make the judgment was ambiguous ("counting on" could equate to "expected" instead of the ICA interpretation of "preferred") and that without further clarification, did not suggest or imply that Putin's orders were intended to help Trump win.(redacted)
(redacted) Did not mention that, (redacted), it was not possible to have the established source ask the subsource to clarify what they meant by the puzzling fragment.(redacted)
The ICA Failed to Acknowledge Alternative Interpretations of the Unclear Fragment Suggested by Events At the Time It Was Collected. ICD 203 directs that analysis must "consider alternative perspectives and contrary information." Yet despite the misgivings of experienced CIA operations officers over the ambiguity of the fragment, the ICA only considers one "single source" interpretation of its meaning - that Putin wanted Trump to win - when events suggested another, more plausible explanation.(redacted)
(redacted) Even assuming that the fragment was not a garble between any of the subsource or established source (redacted), and discounting the unknown circumstances under which the subsource obtained the information, the ICA made no effort to explain how the fragment's ambiguous wording indicated that Putin "aspired" to elect Trump. The original report does not directly say, as the ICA implies, that Putin launched leak operations to help Trump win.(redacted)
(redacted) The ICA also fails to consider alternative, more plausible, explanations for the fragment's meaning suggested by the context of events during early July, when the information was acquired.
(redacted) The fragment could instead be read that Putin expected ("counted on") a Trump victory at the Republican convention, which was only two weeks away at the time of Putin's Wikileaks decision.
(redacted) The fragment referred to decisions made by Putin in early July, when the Republican convention's outcome was still uncertain due to active efforts to deny Trump a majority of convention delegates. This was a headline issue for US political media at the time, although many pundits nonetheless expected - or "counted on" - a Trump victory.(redacted)
(redacted) The fragment thus may reflected the subsource's view that Putin "counted on" a Trump victory in the Republican July primary, but not in the November general election against Clinton.
This alternate interpretation would suggest that the fragment says nothing about Putin's thoughts - positive or negative - of Trump or whether Russia ought to help him win or not. It would not support a judgment that Putin "preferred" Trump, nor one that Putin "aspired" to help him win. Given the importance of this major judgment, policymaker readers deserved to know of all viable alternative interpretations of the unclear fragment.