EXCLUSIVE: Whistleblower Threatened For Not Approving Bogus ICA

A crony of then-Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper threatened to withhold a promotion from a senior intelligence official unless he concurred in the fake Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) on Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election, notes obtained exclusively by The Federalist show.

The notes made public for the first time today recount a conversation the top analyst in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) had with an unnamed superior who worked closely with the then-Director James Clapper, according to sources familiar with the document.

The release of the notes represents the latest cache of documents declassified by the Trump administration official concerning the ICA that outgoing President Barack Obama ordered, which falsely assessed that Putin “aspired” to help Trump win the election. An earlier release by the current Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, revealed the senior intelligence official — whom her office identified as an ODNI whistleblower — had been charged with conducting a “scrub,” which is a review, of the intelligence in the non-compartmented ICA. Emails released last week by Gabbard show the top analyst expressing shock over the ICA’s reliance on the Steele dossier because the versions the analyst reviewed included no intel relying on the Hillary Clinton-based fairy tale of opposition research.

According to a person familiar with the notes, the analyst documented his recollection of the conversation on March 31, 2023 — more than six years after the conversation occurred. The delay, The Federalist’s source explained, occurred because the analyst’s efforts to share his concerns, first with the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community (IC), and then later with Special Counsel John Durham and Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, proved unsuccessful. Only later did the analyst receive an inquiry for more information about his claims, leading to the drafting of the summary of his recollections.

Those notes capture the analyst claiming in early January that his supervisor told him, “There is reporting you are not allowed to see,” adding that “if you saw it, you would agree” with the ICA. After noting he concurred “with varying confidence with most of the 2017 ICA’s Key Judgements,” the analyst explained that he “would need to review any reporting myself in order to consider it.”

“You need to TRUST ME on this,” Clapper’s crony countered, stating to the analyst he “would need to demonstrate [his] ability to ‘outgrow’” his refusal to sign off on assessments he did not share, in order to be recommended for a promotion. The analyst remained firm, according to the notes, which led his exacerbated superior to reply, “I need you to say you agree with these judgements, so that DIA will go along with them!”

The DIA is the Department of Defense’s “Defense Intelligence Agency,” and the notes explain that ODNI sought “to bring DIA on board as an additional IC Agency signing on to the 2017 ICA.” The ODNI whistleblower then relayed that the conversation turned to the “DIA’s supposed trust in me, and the necessity of me proving my ‘corporate IC officer’ bona-fides by doing what it took to bring DIA on board …” The analyst refused to alter his assessment, and the DIA did not join the CIA, FBI, and National Security Agency (NSA) in signing off on the final non-compartmented versions of the ICA.

“I remember this conversation very clearly,” the analyst explained, stressing “it was a difficult situation and I listened, and chose my responses, with care.” “I was aware that I was defying the [National Intelligence Officer’s] direction to me (to misrepresent my views to DIA) based on a conscious decision to adhere to IC standards, tradecraft, and ethics,” the notes concluded.

In addition to withholding a promotion to pressure the analyst to change his assessment, the notes show that Clapper’s mouthpiece attempted to sway the analyst by telling him “to TRUST ME on this,” while indicating that other intel supported the ICA’s conclusions.

The notes also capture the superior asking, “Isn’t it possible Putin has something on Trump, to blackmail and coerce him?” That query sounds strikingly similar to former Director Brennan’s “Yes, but doesn’t it ring true?” response to criticisms over using the Steele dossier in the ICA.

There is one inconsistency in the notes, however, with the analyst referencing Clapper, Brennan, and Comey’s briefing of the ICA to Obama, and its inclusion of the dossier, as having occurred weeks before his superior pressured him to sign off on the assessments. But the briefing to Obama about the ICA occurred on Jan. 5, and the analyst’s notes indicate his conversation with his superior occurred in early January. The notes also addressed the finalizing of the ICA, but it was already finalized at the time of the Jan. 5, 2017, briefing.

A source familiar with the notes and the whistleblower’s claims stated that the analyst based his notes on his six-year-old memory of the timing, but added that he remains confident that the DNI had claimed Comey had surprised the team by inserting a reference to the dossier in the ICA presented to Obama.

Until September of 2019, when he received a request to search for emails related to the Steele dossier in response to a FOIA request, because the “dossier was a factor in the 2017 ICA,” the analyst claims he had no idea the ODNI had relied on Steele’s reporting in the ICA. Contemporaneous emails capture those claims, which are otherwise consistent with the notes he drafted in March 2023 to memorialize his recollection of the events surrounding the final review of the ICA.

Whether additional evidence exists that can confirm this analyst’s claims of the pressure he received and the threat made to withhold a promotion from him unless he changes his assessment remains to be seen. But the evidence is already overwhelming that the analysts involved in the review disagreed with the assessments that Putin “aspired” to help Trump and that Brennan overruled them.

Federalist Editor-In-Chief Mollie Hemingway contributed to this report.

Margot Cleveland is an investigative journalist and legal analyst and serves as The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. Margot’s work has been published at The Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator, the New Criterion, National Review Online, Townhall.com, the Daily Signal, USA Today, and the Detroit Free Press. She is also a regular guest on nationally syndicated radio programs and on Fox News, Fox Business, and Newsmax. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. Cleveland is also of counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland where you can read more about her greatest accomplishments—her dear husband and dear son. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.