DNI John Ratcliffe Bombshell Report: China Interfered In The 2020 Federal Elections

According to the letter transmitted to Congress, the Epoch Times reports that the “Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe assessed that China interfered in the 2020 federal elections.” The letter written by DNI Ratcliffe was labeled “Views on Intelligence Community Election Security Analysis; Intelligence Community Assessment: Foreign Threats to the 2020 U.S. Elections.”

DNI Ratcliffe writes, “from my unique vantage point as the individual who consumes all of the U.S. government’s most sensitive intelligence on the People’s Republic of China, I do not believe the majority view expressed by Intelligence Community (IC) analysts fully and accurately reflects the scope of the Chinese government’s efforts to influence the 2020 federal elections.”

DNI Ratcliffe said that the “IC’s Analytic Ombudsman’s” report contains “concerning revelations about the politicization of China election influence reporting and of undue pressure being brought to bear on analysts who offered an alternative view based on the intelligence.”

The Ombudsman report is given by a politically independent appointed official whose analysis focuses on the public’s interest, not the government. DNI Ratcliffe reports that “the Ombudsman’s report, which is being transmitted to Congress concurrently with this Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA), also delves into a wider range of election security intelligence issues.”

The Intelligence Community Assessment “was prepared in consultation with the Ombudsman.”

The Ombudsman’s report found that the analysis on China’s “undue influence or interference” on the 2020 election did not maintain an “independence of political consideration.” The report found that Chinese analysts “appeared reluctant to have their analysis on China brought forward because they tend to disagree with the administration’s policies, saying in effect, I don’t want our intelligence used to support those policies.”

This is a “violation of Analytic Standard B: Independence of Political Considerations (IRTPA Section 1019).”

The Ombudsman’s report also found that the Intelligence community was actively suppressing analysis that proved China’s increasingly hostile attitude toward America. The report states that “there were strong efforts to suppress analysis of alternatives in the August National Intelligence Council Assessment on foreign election influence.”

The Ombudsman’s report states that the CIA officials “rejected [the National Intelligence Council] coordination comments and tried to downplay alternative analyses in their own production during the drafting of the NICA.” The report also found startling examples of the CIA “pressuring analysts to withdraw their support” for the “alternative viewpoint” on China’s interference.

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DNI Ratcliffe reports that one such example of this is the “ICA gives the false impression that the NIO Cyber is the only analyst who holds the minority view on China.” He claims that the Ombudsman “found during his research and interviews with stakeholders” that NIO Cyber is not on a “metaphorical island” and that many agree with him.

DNI Ratcliffe said that “placing the NIO Cyber on a metaphorical island by attaching his name alone to the minority view is a testament to both his courage and to the effectiveness of the institutional pressures that have been brought to bear on others who agree with him.”

The DNI claims that “because of the highly compartmented nature of some of the relevant intelligence, some analysts’ judgments reflected in the majority view are not based on the full body of reporting. Therefore the majority view falls short of the IRTPA Analytic Standard D.”

The report claims that the Intelligence Community responsible for cultivating intelligence on foreign election interference is holding malicious foreign countries to different standards based on how the intelligence would influence policy. It says that “Tradecraft Standard 1 requires the analytic community to be consistent in the definitions applied to certain terminology, and to ensure that the definitions are properly explained.”

Ratcliffe says that it was “clear” after consuming the intelligence that “different groups of analysts who focus on election threats from different countries are using different terminology to communicate the same malign actions,” violating the Tradecradt Standard 1.

The Ombudsman report also found that “terms were applied inconsistently across the analytic community,” specifically when looking at the “differences in the way Russia and China analysts examined their targets, China analysts appeared hesitant to assess Chinese actions as undue influence or interference.”

DNI Ratcliffe wrote that the issue with the inconsistency with intelligence terminology is that it could give Congress the “false impression that Russia sought to influence the election, but China did not. He ends his letters writing that “based on all available sources of intelligence, with definitions consistently applied, and reached independent of political considerations or undue pressure – that the People’s Republic of China sought to influence the 2020 U.S. federal elections, and raising the need for the Intelligence Community to address the underlying issues with China reporting outlined above.”

Twitter: @marmee_r and Parler: @marmee

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