{"id":1666084,"date":"2026-02-23T10:45:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T15:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1666084"},"modified":"2026-02-23T10:45:00","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T15:45:00","slug":"cia-admits-there-was-political-bias-in-obama-era-intelligence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/cia-admits-there-was-political-bias-in-obama-era-intelligence\/1666084\/","title":{"rendered":"CIA Admits There Was Political Bias In Obama-Era Intelligence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden\">CIA Admits There Was Political Bias In Obama-Era Intelligence<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item\">\n<p>For years, anyone who questioned whether Washington\u2019s intelligence machinery tilted left was told they were peddling conspiracies. <strong>That narrative fell apart on Friday, when CIA Director John Ratcliffe ordered the official retraction or major revision of nineteen intelligence products produced during the Obama years,<\/strong> citing political bias and substandard analytic tradecraft. It\u2019s the first official acknowledgment that America\u2019s most powerful spy agency let politics color its assessments.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cms.zerohedge.com\/s3\/files\/inline-images\/159075731_blog_main_horizontal_80.jpg?itok=bENwikzR\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The intelligence products we released to the American people today \u2014 produced before my tenure as DCIA \u2014 fall short of the high standards of impartiality that CIA must uphold and do not reflect the expertise for which our analysts are renowned,&#8221; Director Ratcliffe<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cia.gov\/stories\/story\/dcia-retracts-biased-intelligence-products-to-reinforce-cia-analytic-objectivity\/\"> said<\/a> in a statement. &#8220;<strong>There is absolutely no room for bias in our work and when we identify instances where analytic rigor has been compromised, we have a responsibility to correct the record.<\/strong> These actions underscore our commitment to transparency, accountability, and objective intelligence analysis. Our recent successes in Operation ABSOLUTE RESOLVE and Operation MIDNIGHT HAMMER exemplify our dedication to analytic excellence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The bombshell came after the President\u2019s Intelligence Advisory Board (PIAB) completed an independent review of hundreds of finished CIA reports spanning the past decade. This period includes Barack Obama\u2019s second term and the Russian collusion hoax.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The PIAB identified nineteen intelligence products that \u201cfailed to be independent of political consideration.\u201d<\/strong> Deputy Director Michael Ellis led an internal review that confirmed the findings. Ratcliffe\u2019s response was swift and blunt. \u201cThe intelligence products we released to the American people today \u2014 produced before my tenure as DCIA \u2014 fall short of the high standards of impartiality that CIA must uphold and do not reflect the expertise for which our analysts are renowned,\u201d he said. \u201cThere is absolutely no room for bias in our work\u2026 These actions underscore our commitment to transparency, accountability, and objective intelligence analysis.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s a rather diplomatic way of saying that Barack Obama\u2019s CIA got caught red-handed playing politics. The agency admitted that at least some of its Obama-era intelligence relied on questionable sourcing, including political activist groups. One report even drew on material from Planned Parenthood, something one official described as \u201cclearly not an appropriate use of CIA resources.\u201d For an organization that prides itself on independence and tradecraft, that revelation is a true humiliation.<\/p>\n<p>CANCELLED: 19 <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CIA?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@CIA<\/a> intelligence products officially retracted over \u201cinappropriate insertion of DEI issues&#8221; and failure to meet &#8220;objectivity&#8221; standards, per senior CIA official.<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CIADirector?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@CIADirector<\/a> Ratcliffe ordered the removal of 17 intelligence products from CIA databases + 2 reports\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/UdaHp6S8Gh\">pic.twitter.com\/UdaHp6S8Gh<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Catherine Herridge (@C__Herridge) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/C__Herridge\/status\/2024958919945211992?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 20, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The implications stretch far beyond nineteen flawed reports. The time frame under review encompasses the same period that produced the now infamous 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) \u2014 the document commissioned in the last days of the Obama administration and released just before Donald Trump\u2019s inauguration, alleging Russian interference in the 2016 election.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>That assessment relied heavily on the debunked Steele Dossier and cast a dark cloud over President Trump\u2019s first term, giving Democrats cover to claim Trump was an illegitimate president.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If nearly twenty reports from that same era failed to meet analytic standards due to political bias, the question is no longer whether the intelligence community was politicized; it\u2019s how deep the rot went.<\/p>\n<p><strong>However, Democrats clearly aren\u2019t convinced.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.),<\/strong> the top Democrat on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, dismissed the retractions, insisting that \u201cthe strength of the Intelligence Community has always depended on its ability to deliver objective, apolitical analysis, grounded in rigorous tradecraft and insulated from political pressure.\u201d He emphasized that such judgments \u201cmust be made by intelligence professionals and not subject to politics.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Warner warned that when politically appointed bodies \u201cappear to be dictating what analysis is acceptable, it risks eroding confidence in the objectivity of our intelligence.\u201d <strong>He described the CIA\u2019s action as part of a \u201cbroader and deeply troubling pattern in this administration<\/strong>: sidelining career experts, undermining inconvenient intelligence assessments, and allowing political considerations to override professional judgment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, however, welcomed the retractions. \u201cThe Obama and Biden administrations mixed intelligence analysis and politics far too often,\u201d Cotton said in a post on X. \u201cI commend Director Ratcliffe for correcting the record and ensuring that the CIA\u2019s analysis is free of any political bias.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SenTomCotton\/status\/2024983274070983133\">added<\/a>, \u201c<strong>I\u2019ve been sending these kind of reports back to the CIA for years and observing that they contain no intelligence. <\/strong>Our intelligence agencies have too often missed critical national-security developments to waste time on, for instance, how \u2018pandemic-related contraceptive shortfalls threaten economic development.\u2019 Honestly.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>      <span class=\"field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden\"><a title=\"View user profile.\" href=\"https:\/\/cms.zerohedge.com\/users\/tyler-durden\" class=\"username\">Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden\">Mon, 02\/23\/2026 &#8211; 05:45<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u200b<a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/political\/cia-admits-there-was-political-bias-obama-era-intelligence\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/political\/cia-admits-there-was-political-bias-obama-era-intelligence<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CIA Admits There Was Political Bias In Obama-Era Intelligence For years, anyone who questioned whether Washington\u2019s intelligence machinery tilted left was told they were peddling&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1666085,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1666084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1666084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1666084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1666084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1666085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1666084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1666084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1666084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}