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:
... 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. ...
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 15.
The ICA Misleadingly That Some of the Dossier Was Corroborated. The ICA further claimed "limited" intelligence corroboration of Steele's information, but failed to mention that his dossier was produced after Russian election hacking operations had already been exposed in the media - beginning 4 June 2016, while Mr. Steele delivered his first report to FBI on 5 July 2016 - and thus any dossier mention of Russian hacking was neither predictive, nor was it unique information that was "corroborated" by intelligence.
"Regurgitated" would have been a more descriptive term to describe the dossier, in that it parroted media or internet stories and pundit comments on Russian hacks of the DNC. Mr. Steele even admitted under oath in a British court that some of the information in his dossier reports was obtained from anonymous internet postings.
The dossier offered no other significant or unique information that could be verified, per the testimony of the FBI Deputy Director. Much of the "verified" material consisted of broad observations that could be separately surmisable from unclassified sources media stories, academic literature, or internet research.(redacted)
The ICA claimed that "some" of the source's information "has been corroborated in the past" but failed to clarify that no significant 2016 information from Mr. Steele on Putin's covert action operations - the topic of the ICA - had ever been corroborated.
-
Mr. Steele's reporting from prior years on unrelated criminal matters had no bearing on the veracity of his information on the far more sensitive topic of Putin's covert action plans against US democracy, and it was misleading for the ICA to equate the two without clarifying the distinction.(redacted)
-
That distinction became increasingly important as the President and senior White House officials sought clarification for why the dossier was included in the ICA.
Pushing the limits of what might constitute intelligence corroboration of the dossier, the ICA identifies some information from dossier reports - information so broad that they could have been acquired from any number of media or academic writings on Putin's Russia - which the ICA claims were "consistent" with intelligence reporting (see box, "The FBI Source Quoted").
What the ICA Says: The FBI Source Quoted ...
Under the ICA judgment that "some of the FBI source's reporting is consistent" with ICA analysis, is the following bullet:
"The FBI source quoted three subsources who reported that Moscow's aim in its campaign was to upend the international liberal order, cause tensions with European allies, shift US policy on key Russian interests, and undermine US politics regardless of the electoral result."
The ICA bullet text goes on to say this information is "consistent with what reporting from a Western government service and signals intelligence indicated were key Russian goals." [ICA p 27]
Such broad ranging information could be consistent with all sorts of reporting, classified or unclassified, and thus does not - as the ICA implies - constitute evidence of the dossier's veracity. There is nothing particularly noteworthy about the Dossier generic claims that Putin desired to "cause tension" with European allies or "shift US policy on key Russian interests." And Moscow for decades has attempted to undermine democratic political systems. It is also noteworthy that the ICA dossier assessment, employed exceptionally compartmented but poor quality reports in its attempts to "corroborate" the dossier's vague claims.
-
(redacted) Both human source reports cited by the ICA as corroborating the Steele dossier came from the (redacted). Both were given the lowest confidence rating by (redacted) of "limited confidence" from "an untested source" with "unvalidated second-hand access" to a senior government official.(redacted)
-
(redacted) The (redacted) includes a comment on the report, that explains some of the information has appeared in the press, and that it is not clear if this report reflects an official's personal understanding of what they consider to be Russia's overall plans for engaging the US, or if the report reflects actual Kremlin decided policies (see box "ICA Citations of Limited Confidence Reports").(redacted)
What Raw Intelligence Says: ICA Citations of "Limited Confidence" Reports Alleged to Corroborate the Dossier
(redacted) "(redacted) Service comment: This report makes various assertions about Putin's objectives and priorities ... It is not clear, though, whether these views are based on a general understanding of how Russia will seek to engage the US, or specific ideas emanating from the Kremlin. Some of this commentary has appeared in open source."(redacted)
The content of the reports provided largely broad-brush information such as:
-
(redacted) "Russia saw NATO expansionism as part of a trend of Western hostility towards Russia."
-
(redacted) "Russia to take steps to actively deter NATO action on its borders; but remains open to dialogue to prevent conflict."
-
(redacted) "Russia's priority was to prevent Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine from joining NATO."
-
(redacted) "Putin remained opposed to US hegemony" and was "determined to curb US influence."
-
(redacted) "Russia wanted from the US: A) Sanctions relief; B) To push Crimea to one side, adopting an 'agree to disagree' position; C) Force Ukraine to implement Minsk II; D) A reversal of the NATO military build-up; E) Respect for Russia's interest in its border states."(redacted)
Some of the information from the two reports seemed odd:
-
(redacted) "PUTIN believed that the President-elect Trump's policy would be shaped by [the 97-year-old former Secretary of State] Henri Kissinger."
-
(redacted) "Putin's ultimate aim was a more democratic, multi-polar world, but one that still included the US."
Given the broad-brush nature of the dossier reporting that the ICA claimed was corroborated, it was unusual that the authors chose such a highly classified, yet poor quality report, to demonstrate corroboration.
-
The poor quality reporting did not induce confidence in the dossier.
-
It did, given the tightly controlled access to the reports, greatly limit access to anyone seeking to verify the ICA's claim that some of the dossier was consistent with other intelligence.
CIA would neither confirm nor deny if these (redacted) reports might have come from Steele's subsources. Steele claims to have shared dossier information with the (redacted) government, but we lack details of exactly what was shared or whether the material was taken seriously.