CIA Veterans Urge Caution on Leaks Saying Russia's Putin Tried to get Trump Elected [View all]

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CIA Veterans Urge Caution on Leaks Saying Russia's Putin Tried to get Trump Elected
Jeff Stein
Newsweek

“I am not saying that I don't think Russia did this,” Nada Bakos, a top former CIA counterterrorism officer tells Newsweek, in a typical comment. “My main concern is that we will rush to judgment. The analysis needs to be cohesive and done the right way.”

Reports on the alleged Russian effort have been anything but cohesive, or complete. During a closed-door briefing to the House Intelligence Committee last week, a senior FBI counterintelligence official reportedly scoffed at the CIA’s conclusion that Russia had plotted to put Trump in office, calling the evidence “fuzzy” and “ambiguous.” Details of the meeting were leaked to The Washington Post.

Another former senior official, who said he was reluctant to go on the record on “something that has obviously been politicized,” tells Newsweek that he, too, is wary of reports that CIA knows for certain that the Kremlin designed a hacking campaign with the specific goal of electing Trump, as opposed to just damaging Hillary Clinton, a hawk on Russia. In order to know Moscow’s intentions, he said, U.S. intelligence would have to have more than cyber-tracks showing Russia’s spy services transferred emails it stole from the Democratic National Committee to WikiLeaks, the whistleblower group led by Julian Assange.

Bakos, a 10-year CIA veteran who worked through a political storm over Iraq intelligence after the September 11 , 2001 terrorist attacks, appealed for a thorough investigation where all the evidence can be examined.

“For the collective good of the American people,” she wrote in a stream of tweets starting Friday, “a thorough Intel Community assessment or NIE should be drafted immediately.” An NIE, or National Intelligence Estimate, is a deep investigation by multiple spy agencies, led by the CIA, on critical issues facing the United States. They are often the product of intense internal fights and can trigger huge controversy, such as the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear program. Paristan leaks often follow.