Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on July 2, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 23, 2026
CIA review finds flaws but confirms Putin's interference in the 2016 election to favor Trump, questioning the confidence level of the assessment.
By Jonathan Landay
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A CIA review released on Wednesday found flaws in the production of a U.S. intelligence assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to sway the 2016 U.S. presidential vote to Donald Trump, but it did not contest that conclusion.
The review "does not dispute the quality and credibility" of a highly classified CIA report that the assessment's authors relied on to reach that conclusion, it said.
But the review questioned the "high confidence" level that the CIA and FBI assigned the conclusion. It should have instead been given the "moderate confidence" rating reached by the communications-monitoring U.S. National Security Agency, the review said.
Trump, who has a history of quarreling with U.S. intelligence analyses, has previously rejected that intelligence assessment, which was made public in an unclassified version in January 2017. After a November 2017 meeting with Putin, he said that he believed the Russian leader's election meddling denials.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe, a former congressman who served as director of national intelligence in Trump's first term, ordered the review and its "lessons learned" section "to promote analytic objectivity and transparency," said a CIA statement.
The CIA's Directorate of Analysis, which conducted the review, "identified multiple procedural anomalies" in how the December 2016 classified assessment of Russian election interference was prepared.
They included "a highly compressed timeline ... and excessive involvement of agency heads" and "led to departures from standard practices in the drafting, coordination, and reviewing" of the report, it said.
"These departures impeded efforts to apply rigorous tradecraft, particularly to the assessment's most contentious judgment," it continued.
The review, however, did not overturn the judgment that Putin employed a disinformation and cyber campaign to sway the 2016 vote to Trump over his Democratic challenger, Hillary Clinton.
A 2018 bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report reached the same conclusion.
(Reporting by Jonathan Landay; Editing by Don Durfee and Chizu Nomiyama)
The CIA review identified multiple procedural anomalies in how the December 2016 classified assessment was prepared, including a highly compressed timeline and excessive involvement of agency heads.
No, the review did not dispute the quality and credibility of the original CIA report but questioned the 'high confidence' level assigned to the conclusion.
The CIA review confirmed that Putin employed a disinformation and cyber campaign to sway the 2016 vote in favor of Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton.
The review was ordered by CIA Director John Ratcliffe, who aimed to promote analytic objectivity and transparency.
A 2018 bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report reached the same conclusion as the CIA review, affirming that Putin sought to influence the 2016 election.
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