ICA Part 3: Commissioning of the ICA - December 6, 2016

Origin of Russiagate ICA - Part 3

The sequence of events leading up to the commissioning of the ICA on December 6, 2016, looks, in retrospect, to have been cunningly choreographed.

A few days after the November 30, 2016 letter from the SSCI Democrats (“in early December”), Obama Chief of Staff Denis McDonough called Brennan and said that Obama wanted a “complete written record” on Russiagate before the end of his term, described by Brennan as follows[1]:

Denis McDonough called me on the secure line in early December and said that President Obama wanted ‘a report produced on everything the Russians had done to interfere in the election. “The president wants ‘a complete written record on what happened, John, but can it be done” he asked, “without compromising sensitive sources and methods?”

Brennan endorsed the idea and suggested that the request be made to Clapper with the proviso that, “if the president …wants to protect sources and methods”, intel agencies other than CIA, ODNI, FBI and NSA should be excluded from the assessment (contrary to standard practice):

I told Denis that pulling together a written record was an excellent idea and that the president should ask Jim Clapper to ‘oversee the production of an intelligence assessment. I added one caveat.

“CIA can take the lead drafting the report,” I told Denis, “But if the president wants a full record of what happened and still protect sources and methods, we ‘will need to restrict the coordination process to ODNI, CIA, FBI, and NSA.

McDonough agreed.

Brennan then called Clapper to give him a “heads up”. They agreed that CIA should be lead and that there should be two versions: a top secret document and an unclassified version with the same conclusions. This aspect of the plan hasn’t attracted much commentary but it was integral: by issuing a public version of the ICA, the stain against the incoming administration would be impossible to remove.

On December 6, 2016, at a meeting of the National Security Council, Obama instructed Clapper to prepare an Intel Community Assessment on Russian interference, requiring a delivery date a few weeks later – prior to the inauguration of the incoming administration. Surprisingly, according to the SSCI Report[2] four years later, “there was no document memorializing this presidential direction”:

The President directed that the report include everything the IC knew about Russian interference in the 2016 elections. In addition, the tasking included providing the IC’s understanding of the historical context of Russian interference in U.S. political processes, focusing on the 2008 and 2012 elections. The presidential tasking also requested recommendations on how to prevent interference in the future and how to strengthen electoral systems. Finally, the instruction was to have a version available to brief Congress, and also a declassified version releasable to the public. The President requested this product be completed by the end of his Administration, January 20, 2017. There was no document memorializing this presidential direction.

According to Greg Miller[3], Obama wanted to create a “record the next administration couldn’t erase”, but, on the other hand, seems to have taken care to ensure that there were no record of the presidential direction that created the “record the next administration couldn’t erase”.

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[1] Brennan, Undaunted

[2] SSCI, IV

[3] Miller, 213