CIA officer Ray Cline, who was the agency’s top analyst during the Cuban missile crisis, once observed that when it comes to intelligence analysis, “objectivity is the only quality that matters.” To that extent, the Trump administration’s top officials have fallen short, and risk undermining a system that should remain apolitical and fact-based, according to a recent study by CIA analysts.
Since Donald Trump returned to office, the number of CIA employees who said they were concerned that the objectives of the analysis were being undermined by political influence has risen significantly, according to the survey, which is conducted annually by the agency’s integrity watchdog. The results have not been made public, but they were explained to me by several people in the know.
It is unclear how many of the thousands of professional staff involved in producing reports, briefs and other materials for the president and his advisers responded. But their comments show how some feel pressured to achieve preferred outcomes rather than follow the truth wherever it leads, people familiar with the voluntary research told me. They asked not to be named in order to speak openly.
The survey, which covers the past year and was sent to members of the agency’s analytics staff, combines multiple-choice questions with an open-ended section where respondents can provide feedback in their own words. Many analysts who provided written responses specifically opposed the actions of then-Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbardaccording to a person familiar with the study.
Among the worries of the analysts is last year dismissal of two senior intelligence officials after one of Gabbard’s aides tried to rewrite their assessment that Venezuela was not targeting the Tren de Aragua criminal gang. The administration wanted to claim the opposite in order to create a legal basis for deporting Venezuelan immigrants.
Respondents also cited Gabbard’s decision to revoke the security clearances of more than three dozen current and former national security officials, without citing any evidence of wrongdoing. Some of them had worked on the intelligence community’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, which Trump derisively refers to as the “Russia hoax.” Gabbard, who left office last month, spent much of her time in office trying unsuccessfully to find evidence that intelligence officials were involved in a conspiracy to implicate Trump with Russia.
Most officers who responded to the survey said they were satisfied with how their supervisors maintained balance, according to a person familiar with the findings. That shows that at the rank-and-file level within the agency, integrity and adherence to standards generally remain, even if those principles are under pressure from above.
But the investigation’s findings should not be read narrowly as criticism of Gabbard alone, the people said. They reflect broader concerns about the political climate in which the president has been misrepresenting intelligence to the public and directing his advisers to seek evidence, however dubious, to support his claims about a rigged 2020 election.
“Trump ran on the platform, and ran his first term, in a way that made it clear that he saw the intelligence community as a press and propaganda office,” Steven Cash, a veteran intelligence official who also served as a staffer on congressional oversight committees, told me. “That basically goes against why there it is intelligence community.”
CIA Director John Ratcliffe and other senior agency officials are aware of the findings of the study. “The CIA is committed to providing objective analysis to policymakers to ensure they always have a strategic advantage, as evidenced by successful operations like Midnight Hammer and Total Solution,” Liz Lyons, the agency’s director of public affairs, told me in a written statement. He was referring, respectively, to last year’s US airstrikes on facilities linked to Iran’s nuclear weapons program and the military operation that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Iran’s strikes last year, however, provide another example of the price officials can pay for not toeing the administration’s political line. The director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse, was fired following an initial report that the airstrikes had set back Iran’s nuclear capabilities by just a few months. Trump had said they were “deleted.”
Generations of political leaders have been frustrated by analysis that doesn’t come out the way they want it to. And analysts have long controlled influence from above. In an essay for Foreign Affairs in 1987, former Deputy Director Robert Gates wrote, “In addition to listening to policymakers, there is sometimes a strong impulse for intelligence officials to show that a policy or decision is flawed or wrong, to stick an analytical finger in the eye of policy. Policymakers know this and understandably resent it.” Gates, who went on to serve as CIA director and defense secretary, wrote that in his experience, administration officials often tried to influence analysis by asking “carefully framed questions” and, “in rare cases,” trying to intimidate officials. “The pressure can be overwhelming.”
But intelligence officials have had to worry that they could lose their jobs, or worse, for telling the truth. Officials whose names have not been publicly disclosed have had their identities exposed and harassed online. Some have told me they are worried that, in addition to losing their permits, fanatical supporters of the president could show up at their homes.
“In my time, I don’t think anybody was afraid that they were going to get fired or that your name was going to end up on Laura Loomer’s blog,” Cash, who served at the CIA from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s, said.
The results of the investigation will be sent to Congress so that lawmakers charged with overseeing the intelligence community can judge for themselves whether the administration has exerted undue influence. The question could not be more timely. Trump has instructed his new acting director of national intelligence, Bill Pulte, to find and uncover evidence that he actually won the award. 2020 election. Pulte will have access to all classified information in the government’s possession, and will have the authority to selectively declassify reports. Lawmakers worry that he will give the public an incomplete picture of what happened in the 2020 election, and that he will undermine confidence in the legitimacy of the midterms later this year.
The Senate is scheduled to hold a hearing later this month on Trump’s nominee to serve as DNI—U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton. If the senators want to know his views on the importance of equality, they can show Clayton what the leading officials say.
