by Paul Sperry at RealClear Investigations
Explosive new evidence suggests that some of the highest-ranking officials in the Obama-era CIA and FBI perjured themselves regarding their claims that Russian President Vladimir Putin helped Donald Trump secure his victory in 2016.
A newly released CIA review challenges their sworn denials to Congress that the Steele dossier – a discredited set of allegations about Trump funded by Hillary Clinton’s campaign – was used as the basis for the years-long Russiagate probe that hamstrung President Trump’s first term.
The eight-page review conducted by career CIA analysts found the dossier did, in fact, worm its way into the text of the highly classified report known as an Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) to buttress the thinly sourced, yet inflammatory allegation that “Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances.”
“Ultimately, agency heads decided to include a two-page summary of the dossier as an annex to the ICA, with a disclaimer that the material was not used ‘to reach the analytic conclusions,’” the CIA review said on page five. “However, by placing a reference to the annex material in the main body of the ICA as the fourth supporting bullet for the judgment that Putin ‘aspired’ to help Trump win, the ICA implicitly elevated [the dossier’s] unsubstantiated claims to the status of credible supporting evidence, compromising the analytical integrity of the judgment.”
The CIA’s “lessons-learned” report contradicts Obama administration officials’ claims – most of which were made under oath – that they did not use the since-debunked dossier.
Former CIA Director John Brennan, for one,…
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