There is an intelligence document out of the 58 declassified this month by President Donald Trump that is sparking questions among veterans of the intelligence community who are calling for a congressional investigation.
They think the public should know when and why it was written, and who requested it.
The document in question is a CIA note about the People’s Republic of China, titled “Sensitive PRC Reporting from 2018 – 2020.” The date is redacted, and it is unclear where within the CIA it originated.
Trump quoted directly from the three-page document in his speech when citing debunked claims that the intelligence community withheld information from him about China, and called on the Justice Department to “fire those involved in the cover-up” and “file criminal charges if appropriate.”
The former officials warned that the document appears to be raw intelligence all supporting a single view — alleging that China wanted Trump to lose the 2020 election and sought to influence the outcome — without including the full scope, context or any definitive conclusion from the agency’s information.
The Trump administration, the officials said, should answer whether the document was drafted in response to a narrowly tailored request from someone within the administration, noting that to do so with the purpose of supporting Trump’s accusations about the security of America’s elections would be a clear politicization of the country’s intelligence community.
One Democratic lawmaker with national security oversight told MS NOW that they have many questions about the document, and the lawmaker plans to send a list of them to the CIA. The document does not show traditional accountability markers, such as authorship and footnotes, and the high degree of confidence expressed in the document is unusual, the lawmaker said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information.
Six former CIA and intelligence officials told MS NOW that the CIA and White House should answer questions about the origin of the intelligence document on China’s alleged efforts to undermine Trump in the run-up to 2020 elections.
The fact that the document presented only one viewpoint and appeared to be crafted in response to a narrow query should be investigated, the former officials said.
The Steady State, a group of former national security and intelligence officials, is calling for an independent investigation by key congressional committees and the inspectors general for the intelligence community and CIA.
Steven Cash, executive director of The Steady State and a former CIA and Department of Homeland Security official, is sending a letter Tuesday to top lawmakers on the intelligence committees and agency watchdog offices, detailing key “anomalies” in the document.
The document “departs in both style and format” from CIA drafting culture, members of The Steady State concluded, and the document does not have caveats typical of CIA analysis.
Intelligence analysts typically work to corroborate information in intelligence reports before crucial information is briefed to the country’s decision-makers.
“It is particularly dangerous when intelligence products are presented piecemeal to the American people,” Cash wrote. “Confidence in the Intelligence Community is predicated not only on what it ultimately knows, but on the integrity of how its work is produced and presented.”
The White House did not answer any questions about the document. The CIA declined to answer questions regarding the origin of the document and when it was produced, saying the information was classified.
“CIA closely collaborated with President Trump’s Government Transparency Task Force to share sensitive intelligence reporting identified by the Task Force for public release, while protecting source and methods,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “Career senior intelligence officials were involved in every step of this process.”
In his primetime speech from the East Room of the White House on July 16, Trump used the contents of the CIA PRC note to again falsely claim past elections were illegitimate, and baselessly question the security of future elections.
“This document says, and this is by the CIA, the strategy included efforts to use Chinese contacts with big U.S. companies to influence U.S. business leaders to turn against the president of the United States of America,” Trump said. “The Chinese government wanted the U.S. president to lose the next election.”
The document in question has been bothering Julia Curlee, a former CIA analyst, since the night it was released by the White House. It looks recently generated and “tailor made,” she said.
“Released under CIA letterhead, but with its author and publication date redacted, it has all the hallmarks of a memo built to serve the president’s political needs and the intelligence community’s authority turned against the American public,” Curlee said.
A former intelligence official called for the date the document was prepared to be disclosed. If it was created recently, the official argued, it raises questions about why it was produced and by whom in the Trump administration.
“Was this done to placate Trump?” the former senior intelligence official asked.
Other former U.S. intelligence officials told MS NOW that the document appeared to be raw, unconfirmed intelligence.
One former official called the document “weird.” The former official added it “doesn’t read like a finished product,” a reference to an intelligence report that has been corroborated, comes from multiple sources and has been reviewed by CIA analysts who are subject-matter experts.
The former official, as well as several others, said the document could have been a response to a request from a senior policymaker to summarize one element of the raw intelligence collected from 2018 to 2020.
Another former official warned that the document “might not tell the full story about the broader topic” because it does not include any intelligence that possibly contradicts the claims in the report.
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