Whistleblower claims 2016 election interference report was deliberately distorted

The US Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released declassified documents on July 30, featuring testimony from a former intelligence official.

The documents state that the whistleblower was pressured by superiors to approve the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) report but refused to sign it, arguing that its findings did not reflect reality.

Attacks attributed to Russia actually came from other countries

The official, who served as a “cyber issues” expert on the National Intelligence Council from 2015 to 2020, argued that the claims of Russian interference to support Trump in the 2016 presidential election were baseless.

The whistleblower said that cyber activities attributed to Russia could have been carried out by other actors through “domain name system (DNS) record manipulation.”

“My professional judgment was that multiple countries were trying to shape the opinions of US voters,” said the official, adding that these countries included NATO allies.

The whistleblower stated that the 2017 report was largely based on English-language content from Russian media, which he described as an “inadequate analysis.”

“I could not approve the report’s conclusions based on the available information,” the official said, explaining that a senior manager asked him to approve the report as a condition for a promotion, but he refused on the grounds of “standards, methodology, and ethics.”

Differing views among the CIA, FBI, and NSA

Although the CIA, FBI, and NSA signed the assessment, the NSA only expressed “moderate confidence.”

The whistleblower said that the FBI had opposed the “Russian influence effort” claims two months before the election but changed its stance after the election results.

He also reported that information in the classified section of the report was based on the discredited “Trump-Russia” dossier by former MI6 agent Christopher Steele.

Among the “other actors” highlighted by the whistleblower were the Alfa Bank allegations presented to the FBI by Michael Sussmann, a lawyer connected to Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton.

These allegations claimed a secret server connection between Trump and Russia but could not be technically proven.

Additionally, a cyber attempt on Georgia’s voter registration system in 2016, traced to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) IP address, was also mentioned in the documents.