AUGUST 2025 – Washington may be a mess, and Trump’s authoritarianism may have the upper hand right now, but we get reminders that clearly articulated facts still rule. No matter who writes them.
A recent op-ed in the NYT by two Obama intelligence officials – John O. Brennan and James Clapper – outlines about as clearly as anyone to date that even Republicans acknowledge that Russia waged an organized effort to undermine Americans’ faith in democracy and promote Trump during the 2016 election. The op-ed above all makes the point that intelligence reports focused only on Russia’s actions, and not any connections to the Trump campaign.
The fact that Brennan and Clapper worked during a Democrat administration does little to diminish the impact of the op-ed, which is almost airtight in its forcefulness and credibility. And a large part of that credibility is the clear and concise prose, intended of course for a general readership. Good writing simply bolsters believability – while bad writing does the opposite.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/30/opinion/trump-obama-treason-russia-miller.html
Contrary to the Trump administration’s wild and baseless claims, there was no mention of “collusion” between the Trump campaign and the Russians in the assessment, nor any reference to the publicly acknowledged contacts that had taken place.
The sole focus of the assessment was on Russia’s actions, not on whom they might have been interacting with in the United States. Although Mr. Trump, during the 2016 campaign, publicly encouraged the Russians to find and expose Mrs. Clinton’s missing emails — to which Russian cyber actors apparently responded in a matter of hours — we left that inappropriate public entreaty unmentioned.
There is a remarkable irony about this whole affair. Despite claims by Trump administration officials of a nefarious political conspiracy, we did everything we could at the time to prevent leaks of intelligence reports, including Russia’s preference for Mr. Trump, a requirement that President Obama regularly emphasized. We knew such reports would be political dynamite. And despite substantial reporting on the matter, we succeeded in preventing such leaks before the election.
In keeping with this solemn obligation to avoid entanglement in American politics, the Obama administration released a written statement one month before the election warning about Russian interference. The statement deliberately said nothing about Mr. Putin’s preferred candidate, despite the evidence already accumulated by U.S. intelligence agencies about his preference.
The real politicization is the calculated distortion of intelligence by administration officials, notably Mr. Trump’s directors of national intelligence and the C.I.A., positions that should be apolitical. We find it deeply regrettable that the administration continues to perpetuate the fictitious narrative that Russia did not interfere in the 2016 election. It should instead acknowledge that a foreign nation-state — a mortal enemy of the United States — routinely meddles in our national elections and will continue to do so unless we take appropriate bipartisan action to stop it.