It was an outcome that never should have happened. Hillary Clinton was destined to win the 2016 election and become the first female president of the United States of America. It was generally portrayed as a slam dunk. But a political upstart, real estate developer, and TV personality named Donald J. Trump shocked the establishment by crossing the 270 electoral vote threshold to claim the Oval Office. On July 2, 2025, CIA Director John Ratcliffe revealed that senior Obama-era intelligence officials circumvented intelligence community protocols to produce an assessment that suggested Trump won the 2016 election with Russian assistance.
The whole Russia “collusion” theory was investigated – and that word is used creatively – by the FBI and then by a Department of Justice special counsel. No evidence was uncovered that tied Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign to the Russians. A subsequent probe conducted by John Durham – also appointed as a special counsel – traced the whole Trump-Russia collusion story back to the Clinton 2016 election campaign.
A 2016 Showdown
America’s “intelligence community” comprises 17 known agencies. Most of them, according to current CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s report, were excluded from the production of the 2016 election intelligence community assessment (ICA). Then-CIA Director John Brennan, a zealous critic of President Trump, along with Barack Obama’s director of national intelligence, James Clapper, commandeered the production of the ICA. That’s outside of protocol, to say the least.
A summary of the now infamous and thoroughly debunked “Steele dossier” – a collection of memos and media reports compiled at the behest of Clinton’s presidential campaign to discredit Trump – was included in the ICA, over the objections of multiple intelligence experts who pointed out that the dossier had not been vetted or corroborated. Brennan, Clapper, and former FBI Director James Comey are all implicated in the decision to use this anti-Trump, unverified opposition research.
The new report says, “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.”
There is no other way to describe this other than as an attempt to sabotage a president-elect for political reasons. The fact that senior intelligence community officials, presumably with the approval of the outgoing president, Barack Obama, sought to sabotage the next president before he even took office is no small matter.
The Corruption Nexus
Unfortunately – and this appears to be the case in every country, not just America – the most powerful politicians and bureaucrats are rarely held accountable for their crimes or corruption. For all Donald Trump has achieved – against all the odds – will he be remembered as truly great if none of those who conspired against him are punished? He has been accused of, and impeached for, inciting an insurrection. What Clapper, Brennan, and Comey did after the 2016 election could very well be seen as comparable, in that it appears to be an attempt to oust – or at least critically damage – a duly elected president. One can’t help but wonder how the history books will portray President Trump if he doesn’t demand accountability for those who conspired to destroy him even after he was chosen by the American people to lead the nation.
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