Former intel officials question authenticity of Trump-declassified CIA memo on China

Former Intelligence Officials Flag Suspicious CIA Memo in Trump Document Dump

Former intelligence officials have singled out a recently declassified memo in Donald Trump's latest release of documents related to the 2020 election, calling for a deeper investigation into its origins and content.

The Steady State, a group of former national security and intelligence officials, has called for an independent probe into a three-page CIA note on China titled "Sensitive PRC Reporting from 2018-2020." The document's date and author are redacted, and it remains unclear where the memo originated within the CIA.

An analysis by the group found that the memo "departs in both style and format" from standard CIA drafting culture and does not include the tell-tale signs of a CIA review.

Despite these concerns, Trump directly quoted the file during his national prime-time address on July 16.

"In mid-2018 the Chinese Communist Party's policy was to leverage all domestic and foreign elements that were opposed to the U.S. president in an effort to reduce the U.S. president's votes and make him resign or prevent his re-election," Trump read from the document. "Isn't that nice?"

During his 25-minute speech, Trump repeated thoroughly debunked claims that there was interference in the 2020 presidential election and that the intelligence community had intentionally withheld information from him during his first term about China's attempts to undermine U.S. election integrity.

Trump leveraged the CIA memo to urge the Justice Department to "fire those involved in the cover-up" and "file criminal charges if appropriate."

However, former intelligence officials have expressed wariness about the document's narrow perspective and thin context, suggesting it could be a response to a targeted request from someone within the administration, according to a report from MS NOW on Tuesday.

Steven Cash, executive director of The Steady State and a former CIA and Department of Homeland Security official, told the digital news organization that he planned to send a letter Tuesday to top lawmakers about the note's "anomalies."

"It is particularly dangerous when intelligence products are presented piecemeal to the American people," Cash wrote. "Confidence in the Intelligence Community is predicated not only on what it ultimately knows, but on the integrity of how its work is produced and presented."

Related reading:

• Intel Docs Declassified by Trump Expose All His Election Fraud Claims

Fauci Diary Entries Reveal Shift from Admiration to Frustration with Trump

Dr. Anthony Fauci initially enjoyed a good relationship with President Trump but eventually came to view him as an "obnoxious adolescent," according to excerpts of his diary released by Republican Senator Rand Paul, head of the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

The released diary entries span from December 2019, just before the Covid-19 outbreak, through December 2022, when Fauci left his position as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Paul released over 1,000 pages from the diary as part of an investigation into the origins of Covid-19, which Paul claims came from a laboratory leak in Wuhan, China.

While the diary contains no "smoking gun" on Covid's origins, it offers an inside view of key moments during the pandemic and illustrates how Trump mishandled the crisis.

Fauci wrote glowingly about his first meeting with Trump on January 29, 2020, in the White House Situation Room:

"He then stayed for 20 minutes and asked most of his questions of me. I was surprised and very pleased and the deputies were clearly stunned and impressed."

Fauci noted that Trump told him, "Anthony, you are really a famous guy. My good friend Lou Dobbs told me that you were one of the smartest, knowledgeable and outstanding persons he knows." After the meeting, Trump thanked Fauci, saying, "We are counting on you."

However, Fauci's entries show how Trump's actions quickly changed his opinion. After a March 2020 press conference, Fauci complained that Trump "wasted the opportunity to just focus on the relief package and went into his diatribe against previous administrations."

Later, in August, Fauci wrote that he struggled to explain to Trump that increased testing did not increase Covid cases.

"All in all it was a manifestation that he..."