David N. Bossie | August 1, 2025
(The Washington Times) — The Trump administration is the most transparent in history by far.
President Trump is our most accessible president, and his unprecedented “open book” leadership style is truly a breath of fresh air. The president and his team make so much news, hold many open-ended press conferences and sit down for so many media interviews that it’s hard to keep track of all the new information each day. Look no further than Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s recent declassification of a critically important secret report about the Trump-Russia hoax that has been locked inside the CIA for years.
The virtually unknown report was penned by Rep. Devin Nunes as chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and his staff during President Trump’s first term. It was viewed as so explosive that it was never allowed outside the CIA — until now.
The fact that a congressional report was never handed over to the legislative branch, where it belongs, illustrates just how troubling the findings are. The American people are just now becoming fully aware, finally, that the Trump-Russia collusion narrative was a lie and that no intelligence suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted Mr. Trump to win the presidency in 2016.
As it turns out, a decision was made during the 2016-2017 transition period by the highest levels of the outgoing Obama administration, including President Obama and CIA Director John O. Brennan, to distort unsubstantiated intelligence for political purposes to kneecap Mr. Trump and his administration before it could get off the ground.
The newly released Nunes report makes clear that the insanely flimsy information that Mr. Brennan allowed into the Jan. 6, 2017, intelligence community assessment would not have even made it into the final version of a garden-variety political opposition research paper put together by a congressional campaign. This 46-page report, which shoots holes in the politicized Obama-Brennan intelligence community assessment, is concisely written and easy to understand, and that’s why it was locked away so long. In fact, it’s the stuff that legitimate Pulitzer Prizes are made of, if the corrupt mainstream media were interested in engaging in some legitimate journalism for a change.
The indefatigable Mr. Nunes and his relentless investigators spent an incredible 2,300 hours reviewing the intelligence community assessment and the factual backup for its findings, or lack thereof. The report blames Mr. Brennan, under direct orders from Mr. Obama, for essentially opening the door to unverified raw intelligence that could be shoehorned into the assessment to smear Mr. Trump.
The report uses terms and phrases such as “substandard,” “unclear,” “of uncertain origin,” “potentially biased” and “implausible” to describe the weak intelligence that “became foundational sources for the ICA judgments that Mr. Putin preferred Trump over [Hillary] Clinton.” It must always be remembered that as the sham intelligence community assessment was being concocted to “stick it” to Mr. Trump, deceitful Mr. Obama had just met with Mr. Trump in the Oval Office and said, “My No. 1 priority in the coming two months is to try to facilitate a transition that ensures our president-elect is successful.” As it turns out, nothing could have been further from the truth.
The Nunes report points out: “Unlike routine IC analysis, the intelligence community assessment was a high-profile product ordered by the President,” and “production of the ICA was subject to unusual directives from the President and senior political appointees, and particularly DCIA.” The report underscores that norms were swept aside and politics, or perhaps outright hatred for Mr. Trump, infected the process because of pressure from the highest levels of the Obama administration.
To that point, a senior CIA officer told investigators that “ideally, they should have eliminated the political judgment” in the section of the intelligence community assessment that manipulated evidence to make the baseless claim that Mr. Putin preferred Mr. Trump or wanted to help Mr. Trump win.
In fact, two CIA officers argued to Mr. Brennan at the time, “We don’t have direct information that Putin wanted to get Trump elected.” In essence, intelligence professionals were telling Mr. Brennan not to include the unfounded Trump-Putin allegations because, as the report states, such a significant accusation “had serious implications for confidence in U.S. democracy.” However, the warnings were of no concern to Messrs. Brennan or Obama because it was all about destroying Mr. Trump by any means necessary and depriving the American people of a smooth transition and unimpeded start of a new presidency. This conspiracy, with assistance from the biased liberal media, damaged the Trump White House from Day 1.
The Nunes findings go on and on, providing example after example of unproven information that was published in the taxpayer-funded, politicized Obama-Brennan intelligence community assessment. The report notes that the assessment “fails to clarify that ‘the plan’ was just an email with no date, no identified sender, no clear recipient, and no classification.” It goes on to say that “what the ICA calls a Russian ‘plan’ for engagement with Trump was actually an anonymous email proposal.” Another erroneous charge in the assessment, that “Putin, his advisers, and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for [Trump],” is included in the report even though “the ultimate source of the information is unknown.” Not shockingly, the report found that CIA professionals “originally declined to publish” the unsubstantiated nonsense but changed direction upon orders from Mr. Brennan.
The stunning Nunes report, finally seeing the light of day, is welcome news for the American people and further confirms the need for a thorough top-to-bottom investigation to find out exactly what happened with the Russia hoax and to hold accountable everyone who conspired to defraud the American people for so many years.
Just as important as the investigation proceeds, Mr. Trump and his team should continue to make regular public disclosures of newly unearthed information. Mr. Nunes and his team deserve great credit for having the courage to do the hard work when few were willing to stick their necks out. The American people have waited for the truth long enough.
David N. Bossie is president of Citizens United. He served as deputy campaign manager for Donald J. Trump for President.
