CIA Director John Ratcliffe is championing transparency like a bulldog with a bone, backing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s bold move to declassify sensitive documents, as CBS News reports. His support signals a seismic shift in how the intelligence community handles long-guarded secrets. The woke crowd’s obsession with secrecy just took a hit.
Ratcliffe, who took the CIA helm in 2025, kickstarted the declassification process, while Gabbard dropped a bombshell 2017 House Intelligence Committee report on Russian election meddling on July 23. Additional 2016 election documents previously entered the public sphere on July 18. This is the kind of openness the establishment loathes.
The House report, penned mostly by then-staffer and now-FBI Director Kash Patel, was a Republican-led effort from 2017, updated through 2020. It sat locked away at CIA headquarters until Ratcliffe sent it back to the House for release. Bureaucratic gatekeepers must be fuming.
Ratcliffe’s directive to return the report to the House Intelligence Committee paved the way for its public debut. “CIA Director Ratcliffe strongly supports the public release,” a CIA spokesperson declared, crediting his leadership. Sorry, swamp creatures, the truth is coming out.
President Donald Trump, sidestepping the usual red-tape tango with intelligence agencies, greenlit the report’s release with minimal redactions. The move blindsided critics who prefer their secrets buried deep. Transparency isn’t their friend, but it’s ours.
The report dives into raw CIA intelligence from a Russian source, questioning their motives and ties to Putin. It formed part of the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment, claiming Russia aimed to boost Trump’s 2016 campaign by slamming Clinton. Sounds like a narrative the left loves to recycle.
Gabbard didn’t hold back, alleging the documents expose a “treasonous conspiracy” by Obama-era officials to kneecap Trump. She claims they cooked up a Russian interference story to undermine him. That’s the kind of accusation that makes progressive heads explode.
Obama’s spokesperson, Patrick Rodenbush, called Gabbard’s claims “bizarre” and “ridiculous.” Nice try, but dismissing hard evidence as a conspiracy theory won’t cut it anymore. The American public deserves better than deflections.
Gabbard doubled down, forwarding the declassified records to the Justice Department for a criminal referral. That’s a gauntlet thrown at the feet of the deep state. Let’s see how they wiggle out of this one.
A July CIA review under Ratcliffe declared that the 2017 assessment’s claim of Putin’s supposed pro-Trump preference should have been rated with moderate, not high, confidence. The review didn’t question the intelligence’s credibility, just its certainty. Leave it to bureaucrats to overhype their case.
The report’s release stirred controversy, with Sen. Mark Warner whining it was “desperate and irresponsible.” He fretted about recruiting spies, saying, “Tell me how you’re going to recruit somebody” if secrets leak. Cry us a river, senator -- transparency trumps your spy games.
Ratcliffe, a former House Intelligence Committee member, is laser-focused on reviving the CIA’s human intelligence collection. “The recruitment of human spies by the CIA is not where it needs to be,” he said. He’s not wrong -- woke policies have gutted old-school spycraft.
Human sources close to world leaders like Putin are gold, but surveillance tech has made them scarce. Intelligence from these assets stays classified for up to 75 years -- unless bold leaders like Ratcliffe and Gabbard step in. The swamp hates that kind of courage.
The CIA’s been pushing recruitment videos in multiple languages to lure sources in places like Russia and China. Ratcliffe’s all in, saying, “I do want to spend time looking at that.” Good -- less reliance on tech, more on gutsy spies.
The 2017 exfiltration of a CIA asset from Russia shows the high stakes of human intelligence. Gabbard and Ratcliffe’s push for openness might rattle cages, but it’s a wake-up call for an agency too cozy with secrecy. The American people deserve to know the truth, not just the narrative.
