Shane Harris writes:

Last week, CIA Director John Ratcliffe released a report that, by his account, finally reveals the whole story about one of the most closely scrutinized documents ever produced by American intelligence agencies.

The “CIA Note,” as it’s officially called, is ostensibly an effort to learn lessons from the past, and it might never have been written absent Ratcliffe’s intervention. In May, he ordered CIA analysts to review the “procedures and analytic tradecraft employed” when drafting an assessment that Russia conducted covert operations to influence the 2016 presidential election, intending to damage Hillary Clinton in order to help Donald Trump. These are the conclusions that Trump, for nearly a decade, has called the “Russia Hoax.”

In public remarks, Ratcliffe claimed that his agency’s review proved that Barack Obama–era national-security leaders had created a “politically charged environment” when they produced the assessment, throwing the credibility of their findings in doubt. “All the world can now see the truth,” he wrote in a post on X. The former heads of the FBI and CIA, along with the director of national intelligence, had “manipulated intelligence and silenced career professionals—all to get Trump.”

Those are profound allegations of ethical misconduct and public deception, and they’re particularly serious coming from the CIA director, a historically apolitical office. But you will find scant evidence to support these claims in the report that Ratcliffe now brandishes like a smoking gun. [Continue reading…]