Recently declassified documents and interviews with former administration officials are shedding new light on how key members of President Donald Trump’s first-term national security team played a role in the Russia gate scandal.
The unsealed documents show that Trump’s former first term officials failed to disclose intelligence that challenged the Obama-era Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA).
The same ICA report that claimed Vladimir Putin personally ordered efforts to help Trump win the 2016 election.
The ICA, finalized in the final weeks of the Obama administration, has long been criticized by conservatives as politically motivated.
Now, according to the newly released material, the assessment rested on thin, unverified intelligence and even incorporated political opposition research funded by Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
In July, Trump’s current Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, described the evidence publicly:
“There is irrefutable evidence that detail how President Barack Obama and his national security team directed the creation of an intelligence community assessment that they KNEW was false.”
.@DNIGabbard: “There is irrefutable evidence that detail how President Barack Obama and his national security team directed the creation of an intelligence community assessment that they KNEW was false.” pic.twitter.com/qJ033F6Qwv
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) July 23, 2025
This latest disclosure has intensified scrutiny of several high-ranking former Trump officials, including former Special Counsel John Durham, former National Security Adviser John Bolton, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and former CIA Director Gina Haspel.
All of whom either withheld, delayed, or failed to act on evidence that called the ICA into question.
According to the newly declassified material, a 2018 review found that the ICA’s central claim was supported by “one scant, unclear and unverifiable fragment of a sentence” from a low-quality intelligence report, along with portions of the now-discredited Steele dossier.
TRAITORS: Trump’s disgraced former CIA Director Mike Pompeo kept the president in the dark while giving Rep Adam Schiff a private workspace inside the CIA to hunt for classified intel that could be used to oust him. John Brennan’s notes indicate Pompeo, Durham, Bolton, and Haspel… https://t.co/04uOCP8ulW pic.twitter.com/79znm9wHnA
— @amuse (@amuse) November 21, 2025
Former Trump national security adviser J.D. Gordon said the failure to expose the ICA’s weaknesses during Trump’s term allowed false narratives to persist.
“The Russiagate betrayal continued in plain sight,” Gordon said.
Bolton and Pompeo Withheld Key Findings
In mid-2018, Bolton’s chief of staff, Fred Fleitz, reviewed a draft House Intelligence Committee report inside a secure facility.
The draft stated that the ICA had misrepresented the value of the Steele dossier and relied heavily on unsubstantiated intelligence.
Fleitz delivered this information directly to Bolton.
However, Bolton “didn’t do anything with it. He never told Trump,” Fleitz said.
Pompeo, then the CIA director, was also briefed on the committee’s findings.
Derek Harvey, who served as a senior adviser to the committee, said Pompeo dismissed the conclusions, and the CIA refused to cooperate with congressional investigators.
“Durham specifically asked for that report to not be declassified and released, because he wanted to use it as part of his investigation and prosecutions – or so we presumed,” the former senior ODNI intelligence official familiar with Ratcliffe’s declassification effort said.
— Paul Sperry (@paulsperry_) November 21, 2025
Haspel Restricted Access While ICA Scrutiny Mounted
Haspel, who served first under Pompeo and later as CIA director, enforced stringent restrictions on the House committee’s review of ICA source documents.
Investigators were allowed only to use CIA-issued equipment, computers that committee staff later said malfunctioned and erased text.
Access to the ICA’s five principal authors was delayed for nearly five months.
She also secured all drafts of the House report and investigators’ notes in a classified vault until the end of Trump’s term.
Before leaving, Haspel personally urged Attorney General Bill Barr and Durham not to release the findings before the 2020 election.
Fleitz described her actions as “insubordination to a U.S. president.”
Haspel had previously been stationed in London during 2016, when FBI investigators, including Peter Strzok, were pursuing early leads that fed into the Crossfire Hurricane probe.
Durham Asked to Delay Release, Then ‘Went Ghost’
As Trump’s first term wound down, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe sought to declassify a 44-page report that refuted the ICA.
Durham objected, claiming he needed the material for his investigation.
Ratcliffe agreed to delay the release.
A former senior ODNI official said:
“Durham specifically asked for that report to not be declassified and released, because he wanted to use it as part of his investigation and prosecutions – or so we presumed.”
But after receiving the report and thousands of pages of supporting documents, Durham allegedly “went ghost.”
“We didn’t hear from him, and he didn’t appear to do anything with the report,” the former official said.
When Durham’s 316-page final report was finally released in 2023, it mentioned the ICA only in a footnote.
“After we gave Durham the report, along with over a thousand pages of other classified documents, he went ghost,” said the former senior intelligence official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “We didn’t hear from him, and he didn’t appear to do anything with the report.”
— Paul Sperry (@paulsperry_) November 21, 2025
Criminal Inquiries Underway Into Obama-Era Officials
Today, the ICA is a central component of ongoing federal criminal investigations involving several Obama-era officials, including former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.
Prosecutors in Florida have issued subpoenas for records concerning the assessment’s drafting.
🚨Stephen Miller outlines the US government’s legal ground for the prosecution of the attempted coup d’état, insurrection and conspiracy.
Listen to every word.“Comey, Clapper, Brennan, Obama, Monaco all conspired together, all worked together to try to sabotage, undermine,… pic.twitter.com/BznGuOogZM
— Svetlana Lokhova (@RealSLokhova) September 28, 2025
Former officials who cooperated with the House review say the ICA shaped years of investigations targeting Trump and his advisers.
Harvey said bluntly:
“The CIA engaged in a conspiracy to fabricate intelligence against Trump.”
He also told investigators that analysts were pressured to adjust pre-election assessments so they aligned with the ICA’s conclusions.
One whistleblower who worked under Clapper believed raw intelligence had been manipulated to support predetermined claims.
He said he contacted Durham but was never interviewed.
Fleitz noted that the newly declassified material confirms what Trump’s allies have long argued, that intelligence was “rigged and politicized,” and that key Trump-appointed officials allowed a flawed Obama-era assessment to go unchallenged.
With criminal inquiries active and more documents expected to surface, the ICA, once presented as the definitive narrative of 2016, is now under the harshest scrutiny it has ever faced.
READ MORE – Surveillance Footage of Charlie Kirk Assassin Mysteriously Disappears
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