Stephanie O’Sullivan served as Clapper’s principal deputy director of national intelligence from February 28, 2011, to January 20, 2017. (Credit: public domain)
A crony of then-Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper threatened to withhold a promotion from a senior intelligence official unless he concurred in the fake Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) on Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election, notes obtained exclusively by The Federalist show.
The notes made public for the first time today recount a conversation the top analyst in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) had with an unnamed superior who worked closely with the then-Director James Clapper, according to sources familiar with the document.
The release of the notes represents the latest cache of documents declassified by the Trump administration official concerning the ICA that outgoing President Barack Obama ordered, which falsely assessed that Putin “aspired” to help Trump win the election. An earlier release by the current Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, revealed the senior intelligence official — whom her office identified as an ODNI whistleblower — had been charged with conducting a “scrub,” which is a review, of the intelligence in the non-compartmented ICA. Emails released last week by Gabbard show the top analyst expressing shock over the ICA’s reliance on the Steele dossier because the versions the analyst reviewed included no intel relying on the Hillary Clinton-based fairy tale of opposition research.
According to a person familiar with the notes, the analyst documented his recollection of the conversation on March 31, 2023 — more than six years after the conversation occurred. The delay, The Federalist’s source explained, occurred because the analyst’s efforts to share his concerns, first with the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community (IC), and then later with Special Counsel John Durham and Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, proved unsuccessful. Only later did the analyst receive an inquiry for more information about his claims, leading to the drafting of the summary of his recollections.
Those notes capture the analyst claiming in early January that his supervisor told him, “There is reporting you are not allowed to see,” adding that “if you saw it, you would agree” with the ICA. After noting he concurred “with varying confidence with most of the 2017 ICA’s Key Judgements,” the analyst explained that he “would need to review any reporting myself in order to consider it.”
“You need to TRUST ME on this,” Clapper’s crony countered, stating to the analyst he “would need to demonstrate [his] ability to ‘outgrow’” his refusal to sign off on assessments he did not share, in order to be recommended for a promotion. The analyst remained firm, according to the notes, which led his exasperated superior to reply, “I need you to say you agree with these judgements, so that DIA will go along with them!”
The DIA is the Department of Defense’s “Defense Intelligence Agency,” and the notes explain that ODNI sought “to bring DIA on board as an additional IC Agency signing on to the 2017 ICA.” The ODNI whistleblower then relayed that the conversation turned to the “DIA’s supposed trust in me, and the necessity of me proving my ‘corporate IC officer’ bona-fides by doing what it took to bring DIA on board …” The analyst refused to alter his assessment, and the DIA did not join the CIA, FBI, and National Security Agency (NSA) in signing off on the final non-compartmented versions of the ICA.
“I remember this conversation very clearly,” the analyst explained, stressing “it was a difficult situation and I listened, and chose my responses, with care.” “I was aware that I was defying the [National Intelligence Officer’s] direction to me (to misrepresent my views to DIA) based on a conscious decision to adhere to IC standards, tradecraft, and ethics,” the notes concluded. (Read more: The Federalist, 7/30/2025) (Archive)