CIA Director John Ratcliffe Declassifies Internal Tradecraft Review of 2016 Election ICA to Promote Analytic Objectivity and Transparency

Excerpt:  “Earlier this year, CIA Director John Ratcliffe tasked Agency career professionals with decades of experience to conduct a lessons-learned review of the procedures and analytic tradecraft employed in the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) conducted shortly after the 2016 election. Today, Director Ratcliffe declassified the results of this review. The tradecraft review identified multiple procedural anomalies in the preparation of the 2016 ICA, such as a compressed timeline, uneven access to compartmented information, marginalization of the National Intelligence Council, and excessive involvement of agency heads. The review notes that adhering to established analytic processes and rigorous tradecraft is essential to ensure credibility, objectivity, and accuracy of CIA analysis.”