White House calls for accountability for those who engaged in 2016 Russia hoax
Intelligence agency officials like former CIA Director John Brennan must be held accountable for their role in advancing allegations about President Donald Trump’s connections with Russia during the 2016 election, according to the White House.
“President Trump was right — again,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “Those who engaged in this political scandal must be held accountable for the fraud they committed against President Trump and the lies they told to the American people.”
Leavitt’s comments come after a new lessons-learned review that CIA Director John Ratcliffe declassified Wednesday determined that the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency’s Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) examining Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election deviated from intelligence standards that led to some “procedural anomalies.”
The review determined that the “decision by agency heads to include the Steele Dossier in the ICA ran counter to fundamental tradecraft principles and ultimately undermined the credibility of a key judgment.”
The “Steele dossier,” composed by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele as part of opposition research on Trump during the 2016 campaign, featured salacious material and unfounded allegations about Trump’s connections to Russia. Trump has denied the allegations included in the document.