The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has pulled more than a dozen intelligence reports after finding that they did not meet standards and failed to be politically neutral.
According to the CIA, the 19 pulled reports were identified by the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board (PIAB) and confirmed by Deputy Director Michael Ellis, who agreed the materials did not align with intelligence community (IC) standards.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe released three redacted reports highlighting the deviations from the high standards. These reports were:
- “Women Advancing White Racially and Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremist Radicalization and Recruitment,” from 2021
- “Middle East-North Africa: LGBT Activists Under Pressure,” from 2015
- “Worldwide: Pandemic-Related Contraceptive Shortfalls Threaten Economic Development,” from 2020
“The intelligence products we released to the American people today — produced before my tenure as DCIA — fall short of the high standards of impartiality that CIA must uphold and do not reflect the expertise for which our analysts are renowned,” Ratcliffe said in a statement. “There is absolutely no room for bias in our work and when we identify instances where analytic rigor has been compromised, we have a responsibility to correct the record. These actions underscore our commitment to transparency, accountability, and objective intelligence analysis. Our recent successes in Operation ABSOLUTE RESOLVE and Operation MIDNIGHT HAMMER exemplify our dedication to analytic excellence.”
Ratcliffe previously condemned Obama-era CIA Director John Brennan for opening a “very politicized inquiry” against the agency’s standards.
A “lessons-learned review” found that Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) authors “first learned of the Dossier, and FBI leadership’s insistence on its inclusion, on 20 December—the same day the largely coordinated draft was entering the review process at CIA,” the review states. Several CIA managers opposed the Dossier’s inclusion, arguing that incorporating it risked the paper’s credibility.
“Despite these objections, Brennan showed a preference for narrative consistency over analytical soundness,” the review criticized. “When confronted with specific flaws in the Dossier by the two mission center leaders—one with extensive operational experience and the other with a strong analytic background—he appeared more swayed by the Dossier’s general conformity with existing theories than by legitimate tradecraft concerns.”
