Biased Spies: CIA rescinds or revises 19 intelligence reports over political bias, bad tradecraft

In a dramatic repudiation, CIA Director John Ratcliffe on Friday rescinded or revised 19 intelligence reports the agency produced dating back to the Obama era because they were politically biased or used poor spy tradecraft, including one analysis suggesting that women who pursue traditional motherhood were at danger of becoming violent extremists.

A senior CIA official told Just The News the reports were initially flagged during a review by the President's Intelligence Advisory Board, then reviewed by career agency officials before being retracted, recalled or revised.

"There is absolutely no room for bias in any kind of the CIA's work," the official said. "So when we find instances where our tradecraft did not reach that high bar of impartiality, we must correct the record. And that's why we're taking steps to reinforce analytic integrity by ordering the public release, substantive revision or retraction of these products that do not meet CIA's tradecraft standards."

Of the 19 analytical reports, 17 have been permanently deleted and are no longer available for spy agencies to use in their work and two were recalled and revised and then re-released, the official said.

The official, who briefed reporters on a call, said the recall of the CIA products had nothing to do with Trump political agendas but rather because they failed to meet rigid analytic standards that have been in place for years under a memo known as Intelligence Community Directive 203.

"There are still objectivity standards and tradecraft standards that the intelligence community should always observe," the official said. "Those standards in ICD 203, were not followed in the case of these products."

To make its point, the CIA released three of the retracted reports, which dealt with issues of political diversity and often quoted from liberal news sites and think tanks for evidence.

One of the retracted reports made public by the CIA on Friday from the agency’s Counterterrorism Mission Center, while two of them come from the CIA’s World Intelligence Review (WIRe), which is described as a “daily publication” at the agency and as the “flagship product” of the CIA’s Directorate of Analysis.

“Under prior administrations, there was an inappropriate insertion of DEI issues and other distractions into aspects of CIA’s work, which undercut our mission of providing objective analysis on national security issues,” the senior CIA official said Friday.

The official also said: “I don’t think it is safe to assume that everyone involved with them is still with the agency.” But there was no confirmation from the official that all of the analysts involved had been removed or had left the CIA.

“Women Advancing White Racially and Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremist Radicalization and Recruitment”

An intelligence assessment from the CIA from October 2021 – the first year of Biden’s presidency – was titled “Women Advancing White Racially and Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremist Radicalization and Recruitment.” The intelligence product was “produced under the auspices of the Chief of Analysis” at the “Counterterrorism Mission Center.”

The CIA assessment said that it “examines some of the roles that women have adopted to participate in white racially and ethnically motivated violent extremism and contribute to the endurance and resonance of its narratives worldwide” and that it “highlights white racially and ethnically motivated violent extremist (REMVE) vulnerabilities and opportunities to expand European and Five Eyes governments' and civil societies' counter-messaging efforts.”

The senior intelligence official said Friday: "This is a prime example of how DA analysts should not be spending their time.” 

The official also argued that the product “waded into foreign political debates and took a side in social and gender debates” and said that the agency “needs to steer clear of the political bias that undermines objectivity.”

“We assess that female members have been emerging as key players of the transnational white racially and ethnically motivated violent extremist (REMVE) movement, taking on diverse roles to advance white REMVE goals-including the white REMVE view of traditional motherhood-and successfully participating in newer roles in propaganda and recruitment,” the CIA report also stated.

The report also said that some female members of such groups were “spanning traditional motherhood-focused roles aimed at advancing white REMVE goals and roles that capitalize on their skills in propaganda to bring in new recruits.”

The retracted CIA product pointed to one apparently foreign group in particular that “has lauded motherhood and homemaking as women's most important responsibility, and in 2017, it recorded an increased number of female recruits.”

The retracted assessment by the CIA also stated: "We have adopted the term white REMVEs to describe those individuals and groups who incite, facilitate, or conduct violence because they believe that their perception of an idealized white European ethnic identity is under attack from people who embody and support multiculturalism and globalization.”

The CIA assessment also said that it defined "white REMVE-sympathetic" actors as “individuals or groups who may not openly advocate violence but amplify white REMVE narratives regarding their perceptions of racial and ethnic hierarchy, as well as perceived threats from those they see as advocating multiculturalism and globalization.”

“White REMVEs and their sympathizers have claimed in online posts that it is essential for white families to have as many biological children as possible to counter the rising birthrates among non-white populations; white REMVEs allege that this rise is a conspiracy, which they have termed the ‘great replacement,’ according to an Open Source Enterprise assessment,” the since-withdrawn agency assessment said.

The intelligence product included a number of questionable and far-left sources and citations.

One citation was to a 2019 article by the New York Times that was headlined “O.K. Hand Sign Is a Hate Symbol, Anti-Defamation League Says. The many symbols, slogans, and memes used by white supremacists – like the bowl haircut of one gunman – are seen as imperfect signposts in the effort to combat violence.”

The withdrawn intelligence product also pointed to a 2019 article in the Toronto Sun titled “White Power Barbies a powerful alt-right recruiting tool.”

The since-withdrawn assessment also cited a 2021 article by An Injustice Mag – a website hosted by Medium that described itself as “A new intersectional publication, geared towards voices, values, and identities! … We speak to the intersectionality of identity and share the stories of those who bring all their selves into all their spaces.”

Other articles on the far-left site posted at about the same time included such titles as “If You Like Happiness and Freedom, You’re Going to Love Socialism. Happiness and freedom go hand in hand with each other, and they both go hand in hand with democratic socialism.”

The leftwing site cited by the CIA also included an article from the same timeframe titled “Dismantling the Cult of the Penis; What it Means for Transfeminism and Rape Culture. This article comes with a trigger warning for the following: rape, sexual assault, discussion of genitalia, transphobia, transmisogyny, violence.” Another example from the site was “Sexual Frustration Is at the Root of the Political Right. They are all pent up balls of rage for a reason.”

CIA worried that COVID-19 pandemic would lead to drop in abortion access

Another retracted CIA intelligence assessment – this one from July 2020 during the final year of Trump’s first term – was part of the CIA’s WIRe reporting. The publication was titled “Worldwide: Pandemic-Related Contraceptive Shortfalls Threaten Economic Development” and took a seemingly pro-abortion tone – including citing pro-abortion sources.

“The COVID-19 pandemic is limiting contraceptive access in the developing world and will probably undermine efforts to address population pressures there that are hindering economic development,” the CIA product said. “Before the pandemic, populations in 54 developing countries – such as Egypt, Nigeria, and Pakistan – were growing at rates that typically strain governments' capacity to provide jobs, education, and health care, according to the UN and academic research, and persistent interruptions to regular family-planning services would exacerbate these demographic trends.”

The senior CIA official said Friday that this analysis used “unobjective sources of information such as Planned Parenthood, which CIA analysts should not be citing.”

The withdrawn CIA assessment added: “Travel restrictions, reduced NGO outreach, and patient concerns about contracting COVID-19 have curtailed in-person visits for reproductive health care in at least 26 developing countries, judging from reporting from the UN, Western NGOs, and international press. Pakistan, Sudan, Uganda, and Zambia have each closed more than 100 reproductive health clinics since March, according to a Western NGO, probably to divert medical resources toward treating COVID-19 and limit routine doctor visits during the pandemic.”

The CIA document also stated: “Extended family-planning shortfalls would probably prompt higher birth rates and dampen economic prospects in countries struggling to support large populations. Government officials in India, Indonesia, and the Philippines, and a local NGO in Nigeria have said that they expect the pandemic to cause an uptick in births that could worsen demographic pressures in their countries, according to local, regional, and Western press reports. The UN projects that pandemic-related constraints to contraceptive access could result in as many as 15 million additional unintended pregnancies across low- and middle-income countries during the next year.”

An article by Foreign Policy from May 2020 was cited twice in the CIA’s WIRe product, with the article titled, “The Coronavirus Is Cutting Off Africa's Abortion Access. The collapse of medical supply chains has been a catastrophe for women in developing countries. Lockdowns have made matters worse.”

The agency product also cited an April 2020 article by International Planned Parenthood Federation three different times. The article was titled “COVID-19 pandemic cuts access to sexual and reproductive healthcare for women around the world.”

The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute also had articles by the CIA product four times, including one titled, “Estimates of the Potential Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Sexual and Reproductive Health in Low- and Middle-Income Countries.”

CIA cites source claiming life for gays better under Muslim Brotherhood

Another CIA intelligence assessment – from January 2015 during the Obama presidency – was written by the CIA’s “Office of North Africa Arabian Peninsula and Regional Analysis” and was also part of the agency’s WIRe reports. It focused on “Middle East-North Africa: LGBT Activists Under Pressure.”

“The tough stance taken against the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community by governments in the Middle East and North Africa probably is driven by conservative public opinion and domestic political competition from Islamists, and is hindering U.S. initiatives in support of LGBT rights,” the assessment argued.

The CIA also stated: “Negative perceptions of LGBT individuals are widespread for cultural and religious reasons; LGBT activists report that since 2011 their community in the region has come under increased scrutiny by governments and has been targeted by militias in Iraq and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in Syria, according to a body of regional and Western press and NGO reporting.”

The senior CIA official said Friday it's not the agency's role to "wade into political debates about LGBT issues.”

The since-withdrawn agency product also said that “regional governments targeting groups and individuals advocating LGBT rights almost certainly will portray international efforts to advance such rights as foreign meddling, undercutting US policies to protect LGBT individuals.”

“Progress in mitigating human rights abuses against LGBT individuals in the Middle East and North Africa almost certainly depends on engaging governments in the region on their legal frameworks 15 out of 18 Middle Eastern countries criminalize same-sex acts-and influencing societal tolerance for the community's rights,” the CIA said.

The since-withdrawn CIA report also contended that “supporting gender studies in academic institutions in the Middle East and North Africa may offer an opportunity for US engagement on LGBT issues because this academic field often explores diversity of identity in society.”

The CIA analysis also twice cited a Daily Beast article from June 2014 that claimed that Egypt was a worse place for gays under Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah El-Sisi than it had been under the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood, a radical Islamist group that has since been designated a terrorist group by the United States.

The retracted agency product also cited the Washington Blade – “the oldest LGBTQ newspaper in the U.S. covering the latest gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender news in Washington, DC and around the world" – four times as well.

The analysis by the CIA also cited the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) three times. The HRC describes itself as “the nation's largest civil rights organization working to achieve LGBTQ+ equality.” 

The HRC has consistently backed Democrats for president, endorsing Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, Hillary Clinton in 2016, Joe Biden in 2020, and Biden and then Kamala Harris in 2024.

In the U.S. intelligence community’s anti-DEI efforts during the second Trump administration, Judge Anthony Trenga last April blocked efforts by the CIA and the ODNI to terminate intelligence officers who had been tied to DEI initiatives during the Biden administration. The Justice Department, on behalf of the two spy agencies, quickly appealed the ruling to an appeals court, where a ruling has not yet been issued.