A Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analyst and co-author of the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA), which tied then-President-elect Donald Trump to allegations of Russian interference, claimed former CIA Director John Brennan controlled the ICA’s contents and dissemination, according to a Tuesday report.
The anonymous whistleblower shared the behind-the-scenes creation of the infamous “Russiagate” document, in an interview with Michael Shellenberger and Alex Gutentag’s Public on Tuesday.
The whistleblower asserted former senior CIA officer Susan Miller, who previously claimed involvement in the ICA, “had no role in the ICA,” according to the report.
“Members of Miller’s analytic team participated in the ICA, but she had zero role,” the senior analyst claimed.
The whistleblower claims the person who played a large role in crafting the ICA was actually Brennan.
The media say Obama’s CIA Dir. John Brennan didn’t manipulate intelligence to frame Trump. But now, a top CIA analyst who coauthored the Jan. 2017 report on Russian interference reveals, for first time, that a “pathological” Brennan put analysts “under duress” to cook the intel. pic.twitter.com/Kk84RCE6QZ
— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) August 5, 2025
“John Brennan’s pathological need for control was one of the key corruptions within the ICA process and the Fusion Cell,” the whistleblower alleged. (RELATED: Most Voters Want Accountability For Russiagate, New Rasmussen Poll Shows)
The “Fusion Cell” was a group of analysts and representatives from various intelligence agencies that included the ICA drafters.
However, senior CIA officials reportedly restricted the team’s access to information and “refused to allow outside analytic experts within the [Directorate of Analysis] to review either the ICA itself or the underlying source reporting,” neglecting a critical check that typically exists in analytic production, the whistleblower claimed.
“Because of the isolation of the Fusion Cell, there was no way to ‘stress test’ the reporting and either validate it or rule it out,” the analyst told Public. The whistleblower also attributed the ICA’s false claim that Russia preferred a Trump presidency to a lack of “careful review.”
The analyst claimed that after the ICA was drafted, the CIA received an email from the FBI demanding the Steele Dossier — a debunked and then-unverified privately funded investigation — “be included as a primary source report in the ICA itself.”
The ICA team reportedly pushed back.
“CIA analysts strongly and in writing opposed including it… But the team was overruled,” the whistleblower told Public.
“FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe said that if the dossier was not included, FBI would withdraw from the ICA, and Director Brennan made clear that FBI would be kept in the ICA at all costs,” the analyst claimed.
“Under duress, the team grudgingly acquiesced in drafting an annex to leave the reporting away from the main body of the text,” the source told Public.
Yesterday we reported that a senior CIA analyst said Obama’s CIA Director was “pathological” and put agency analysts “under duress” to use bogus intel. Today we report that the CIA remains corrupted by “systemic rot,” and that crucial reforms “have not been put in place.” pic.twitter.com/J62VVu1Y8A
— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) August 6, 2025
The whistleblower alleged the FBI “demanded changes to the CIA-drafted language in the annex to make Steele’s credibility look more real… those demanded edits were accepted, as was the now-notorious footnote drawing attention to the [Steele dossier] annex in the main body of the text,” according to the report.
Brennan reportedly assured the analysts the dossier would only appear “in the most restricted form of the ICA” available to a small group of top officials. However, leaks from this sensitive version showed Brennan “had lied about the dissemination restrictions,” the whistleblower alleged to Public.
“Director Brennan personally controlled the dissemination of all CIA reporting used in the ICA,” the whistleblower claimed.
“[H]e could revise and change what was disseminated based on his views,” the analyst added. Later emails allegedly showed “Brennan’s true views on the ICA demonstrated his lack of integrity,” the source told Public.
“There is no reason to believe that Brennan, a political operator with many friends in senior roles in the Clinton campaign, was not either directly or indirectly engaging or being influenced by it, regardless of his claims,” the whistleblower claimed.
In a New York Times guest essay, Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper wrote that their initial findings showed a Russian preference for Trump, and they claimed the Steele Dossier “was not used as a source or taken into account for any of its analysis or conclusions.”
CIA spokesperson Liz Lyons told Public: “As the CIA’s recent tradecraft review showed, Obama administration political appointees often overruled and pressured career officials into violating tradecraft standards. Director Ratcliffe has prioritized the total elimination of politicized intelligence and has made numerous personnel moves to achieve that goal.”
The FBI has not returned the Daily Caller’s request for comment as of publication.
Public’s story follows The Federalist’s report of a senior intelligence official who was allegedly threatened with the withholding of a promotion for refusing to sign off on the ICA.
