By Harold Pease, Ph. D.
The new CIA Director John Radcliffe just released ICA’s Tradecraft Review of the 2016 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) revealing the CIA, FBI and DNI’s unsuccessful attempt to nullify Trump’s 2016 election victory over Hillary Clinton because of alleged Russian collusion in the election. In this, outgoing President Barack Obama and then CIA director John Brennan played major and intentional roles in both. The Russian Hoax and its coverup, is now the biggest political scandal in American history. The Report, showed that “then-CIA Director John Brennan, FBI Director James Comey and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who were “excessively involved” in its drafting, and rushed its completion in a “chaotic,” “atypical” and “markedly unconventional” process that raised questions of a “potential political motive” (“Obama’s Trump-Russia collusion report was corrupt from start: CIA review,” by Miranda Devine, New York Post, July 2, 2025). The obvious intent, though not cited, was to leave Trump, the 2016 election victor, unseated, against the will of the people who elected him.
A glaring curiosity was the timing, “on December 6, 2016, six weeks before his presidency ended,” and a month after the election, “Barack Obama ordered the assessment, which concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘aspired’ to help Trump win the election”—thus Russian collusion (Ibid.). Brennan had an obvious obsession to include in the report the unverified, even discredited Steele dossier, “despite objections of the authors and senior CIA Russia experts, so as to push a false narrative that Russia secured Trump’s 2016 victory.” Still another unexplained anomaly for a guy leaving the presidency within weeks, is Obama’s wire tapping of Hillary’s political opponent. Trump responded, “Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires taped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!” (X22 Report, Ep. 3679b, July 3, 2025, 47:19, X). “Never has a president left office to collude with others to impede the next sitting president of the United States of America until Obama! (Ibid. 52:23).
The release of the classified “Tradecraft Review of the 2016 Intelligence Community Assessment [ICA] on Russian Election Interference” was conducted by career professionals at the CIA’s Directorate of Analysis and was commissioned by CIA Director John Ratcliffe last May. It concluded that in 2016, then CIA director Brennan and others rushed the Russia Election Interference Intelligence Assessment. In it “Brennan is shown to have dismissed high-level warnings that the Clinton campaign opposition research, the ‘Steel Dossier,’ was not credible. The intelligence community CIA, FBI, DNI, etc. intentionally fabricated intelligence information to create an entirely fictitious storyline”and weaponized the fake narrative against Donald Trump to prevent him from taking office after being elected by the people (Ibid., 48:19).
If the Coup d’état. was unsuccessful then why does this matter now in 2025—nine years later? Because those unpunished then remained in place enabling them to cheat even more so in every two year election cycle thereafter, potentially to infinity if not exposed, punished and stopped.
Rasmussen Reports labeled the CIA Directors’ recent release as “An Enormous Scandal, Dwarfing Watergate and the Pentagon Papers,” much much bigger than Watergate (Ibid., 48:52). To which Lee Smith, an investigative reporter replied, “Useful detail but misses crucial fact. I’ve reported in three books: Obama ordered ICA and knew by August 2016 [that the] only intel tying Trump to Russia was [the] dossier. That’s the scandal, not bad tradecraft or stove piping intel etc: Obama framed Trump” (Ibid. 49:25). Let us repeat, “Obama framed Trump.”
General Mike Flynn, who was himself victimized by the Deep State, said, “The newly declassified ICA proves without a shadow of a doubt that the entire operation was a rigged partisan hack job. It wasn’t intelligence. It was propaganda meant to undermine the incoming POTUS. And who orchestrated this disgrace – John Brennan, a man who wore the title of CIA Director but acted like a political assassin in service to the Obama/Clinton machine. He didn’t just fail in his duties. He betrayed it. He weaponized the CIA to push a lie, boxed out the rest of the intelligence community and engineered a fraudulent narrative that tore our nation apart. He knew the Intel was a lie yet he led a small handpicked Cabal to hide the truth and manufactured a story that served their agenda …. Everything they accuse Trump, myself, and others of doing they were doing behind the scenes. That is what Marxists do. And while they pushed their fiction, real Americans paid the price. I exposed all of it in my new book ‘Pardon of Innocence.’” General Flynn’s suggestion now is that “John Brennan needs to be put under investigation immediately.” (Ibid., 49:47). Kash Patel in his book “Government Gangster’s” verifies in detail how this was done—this whole attempted Coup d’état.
There are good reasons why Trump could not go after those who went after him and Flynn when he was president before Joe Biden. Then, few knew of the Deep State. Even fewer would have believed him and had he sought justice who would have investigated and who would have prosecuted—a rogue FBI and Department of Justice? And with the corrupt judicial justices that are only now being exposed, who would have convicted? Even now that the vast majority of the people are awakened to these coup conspirators we are probably not ready to give long prison sentences to them—perhaps executions? If justice is not restored they will be back in power.
Fortunately, “there exists no statute of limitations for conspiring to defraud the US government,” none also for criminal Rico activities, more especially, if criminal activities are ongoing or there exist any attempt to cover them up. This includes cheating in elections in 2016, 2018, 2020, 2022, 2024—much of which has been documented. This is why Trump allowed them to continue to do this. It removes the statute of limitations.” (Ibid., 52:08). But we must win both Houses of Congress decisively in 2026.
Ratcliffe in an exclusive interview summarized the rational for the released Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA). “This was Obama, Comey, Clapper and Brennan deciding ‘We’re going to screw Trump.’” And they did. Others called it treason then and now.
Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution and a syndicated columnist. Read his weekly columns at www.LibertyUnderFire.org Column # 828 `Help preserve our Republic while we still can by sharing this column.