Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe declassified Russia investigation documents on Tuesday, including handwritten notes from former CIA Director John Brennan showing he briefed President Barack Obama in 2016 on an unverified Russian intelligence report claiming that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton planned on tying then-candidate Donald Trump to Russia’s hack of the Democratic National Committee to distract from her use of a private email server.
“At the direction of the President of the United States, I have declassified the enclosed documents, inclusive of redactions. These documents are responsive to ongoing congressional oversight and investigation requests,” Trump’s intelligence chief said in a one-page letter to the Republican and Democratic leaders on the House and Senate intelligence committees, accompanied by two heavily redacted documents obtained by the Washington Examiner. The first was a September 2016 investigative referral from the CIA to former FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Assistant Director for Counterintelligence Operations Peter Strzok, and the second was Brennan’s notes on the purported July 2016 plan approved by Clinton.
This follows a letter from Ratcliffe, who oversees the nation’s 17 spy agencies, released last week that revealed Obama was briefed by Brennan in the summer of 2016 about this unverified Russian intelligence analysis.
“We’re getting additional insight into Russian activities from [REDACTED],” Brennan wrote in the two pages of almost entirely redacted handwritten notes. “CITE alleged approval by Hillary Clinton on July 28 of a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service.”
The rest of Brennan’s notes are almost entirely blacked out. “POTUS“ (a reference to Obama) is written in the margin, followed by two redacted bullet points and one bullet point saying, “Any evidence of collaboration between Trump campaign + Russia.” “JC” (a possible reference to then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper) is also written in the margin, followed by five redacted bullet points. “Denis” (a likely reference to then-Chief of Staff Denis McDonough) is followed by one redacted bullet point, and then “Susan” (a possible reference to then-national security adviser Susan Rice) is followed by what appear to be five more redacted bullet points.
Ratcliffe sent a one-page letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham last week, which said U.S. intelligence agencies obtained in late July 2016 “insight into Russian intelligence analysis alleging that U.S. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had approved a campaign plan to stir up a scandal against U.S. Presidential candidate Donald Trump by tying him to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and the Russians’ hacking of the Democratic National Committee.” But, Ratcliffe stressed, the intelligence community “does not know the accuracy of this allegation or the extent to which the Russian intelligence analysis may reflect exaggeration or fabrication.”
Graham said last week that the letter provided by Ratcliffe “shows there may have been a double standard by the FBI regarding allegations against the Clinton campaign and Russia. Whether these allegations are accurate is not the question. The question is did the FBI investigate the allegations against Clinton like they did Trump?”
Clinton spokesperson Nick Merrill said the claims were “baseless bullshit.”
Brennan, who has a new book out, appeared on CNN shortly after his notes and the CIA referral were made public Tuesday and was asked by anchor Jake Tapper about Ratcliffe’s decision to declassify them.
“It is appalling, his selective declassification of information that clearly is designed to advance the political interests of Donald Trump and Republicans who are aligned with him,” Brennan claimed. “But these were my notes from the 2016 period when I briefed President Obama and the rest of the National Security Council team about what the Russians were up to, and I was giving examples of the type of access that the U.S. intelligence community had to Russia, Russian information, and what the Russians were talking about and alleging. Now, if, in fact, what the Russians were alleging, that Hillary was trying to highlight the reported connections between Trump and the Russians, if, in fact, that was accurate, and that’s a big if, there is nothing at all illegal about that.”
The newly declassified records from Tuesday also include a partially blacked-out CIA referral memorandum addressed to Comey and sent to the attention of Strzok on Sept. 7, 2016.
The referral states: “Per FBI verbal request, CIA provides the below examples of information the CROSSFIRE HURRICANE fusion cell has gleaned to date [Source revealing information redacted]: [REDACTED] An exchange [REDACTED] discussing U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s approval of a plan concerning U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian hackers hampering U.S. elections as a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server. [Redacted] According to open sources, Guccifer 2.0 is an individual or group of hackers whom U.S. officials believe is tied to Russian intelligence services. Also per open sources, Guccifer 2.0 claimed credit for hacking the Democratic National Committee this year.”
The CIA also warned: “This memorandum contains sensitive information that could be source revealing. It should be handled with particular attention to compartmentation and need-to-know. To avoid the possible compromise of the source, any investigative action taken in response to the information below should be coordinated in advance with Chief Counterintelligence Mission Center, Legal. It may not be used in any legal proceeding — including FISA applications — without prior approval.”
Democrats reacted with outrage last week after Ratcliffe’s letter was made public last week.
“It’s very disturbing to me that 35 days before an election, a director of national intelligence would release unverified Russian rumint,” Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, told reporters.
Ratcliffe released a statement to the Washington Examiner to address the backlash, saying, “To be clear, this is not Russian disinformation and has not been assessed as such by the intelligence community.”
During a hearing with the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, Comey claimed he didn’t understand Ratcliffe’s letter when being questioned by Graham and other senators. The South Carolina Republican asked Comey if he recalled “getting an inquiry from the intelligence community in September 2016 about a concern that the Clinton campaign was going to create a scandal regarding Trump and Russia.” The fired FBI director replied, “I do not.” Graham said, “That’s a pretty stunning thing that it didn’t ring a bell, but it did come to you.”
DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz said FBI interviews with British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s primary subsource, U.S.-based and Russian-trained lawyer Igor Danchenko, “raised significant questions about the reliability of the Steele election reporting” and cast doubt on some of its biggest claims. Horowitz’s lengthy December report criticized the Justice Department and the FBI for at least 17 “significant errors and omissions” related to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, who was never charged with a crime and has denied any wrongdoing, and for the bureau’s reliance on Steele’s Democratic-funded and discredited dossier.
Declassified footnotes now show the FBI was aware that Steele’s dossier might have been compromised by Russian disinformation, and new information shows Danchenko was previously investigated as a possible “threat to national security.”
After a two-year investigation, former special counsel Robert Mueller released a report in April 2019, concluding that the Russians interfered in the 2016 election in a “sweeping and systematic fashion” but “did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government.”
