John Brennan (l), James Clapper (c) and Admiral Mike Rogers testify at House hearing on world wide cyber threats in September 2015. (Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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Admiral Mike Rogers and the Steele Dossier
Admiral Mike Rogers, who retired in 2018 after four years as National Security Agency chief and commander of U.S. Cyber Command, previously expressed a certain level of skepticism about the U.S. intelligence community’s 2017 assessment of alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election — and a newly declassified interview Rogers gave to the FBI later in 2017 shines light on the dim view Rogers had of British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s discredited dossier.
“ADM Rogers decided that he would make the final analytic call on the NSA’s input to the ICA as he knew there would be a lot of pressure and attention on the final draft and he felt strongly his career analysts shouldn’t have to be responsible for something under such political pressure. In one draft of the ICA, ADM Rogers noted the contents of the ‘Steele dossier’ in the body of the product, which he did not recall seeing in previous drafts,” FBI notes dated June 17, 2017 state.
“In early January, the four principals met and ADM Rogers told the group he was unclear why the ICA needed to focus on the dossier as it was considered largely uncorroborated. Comey responded that the information was relevant and ADM Rogers suggested the information be included in an annex or appendix rather than prominently in the nearly one-page summary he had seen.”
Rogers and Comey, along with Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and CIA Director John Brennan, briefed President-elect Trump about their election meddling findings at Trump Tower in January 2017. Comey stayed behind to tell Trump about some of the dossier’s more salacious allegations.
Steele told the FBI in October 2017 that he was “frustrated” by his dossier’s inclusion in an annex to the ICA. The FBI agent who recounted the interview with Steele wrote, “They brought up the inclusion of their material in the ICA annex multiple times – almost to the point that it felt like fishing for information about how the ICA was constructed. In the end, I made the point that I wasn’t going to get into how the ICA was put together, how the annex came about, etc.”
The Steele dossier annexed to the ICA was largely declassified in 2020, and it relayed some of Steele’s baseless collusion claims: “The most politically-sensitive claims by the FBI source [Steele] alleged a close relationship between the President-elect and the Kremlin. The source also claimed that the President-elect and his top campaign advisers knowingly worked with Russian officials to bolster his chances of beating Secretary Clinton; were fully knowledgeable of Russia’s direction of leaked Democratic emails; and were offered financial compensation from Moscow.”
Varying assessments from intelligence services
The 2017 intelligence assessment concluded with “high confidence” that Russia worked to “undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate former Secretary of State Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency” and “developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump.” The NSA diverged on one aspect, expressing only “moderate confidence” that Putin actively tried to help Trump’s election chances and harm those of Clinton.
“I wouldn’t call it a discrepancy. I’d call it an honest difference of opinion between three different organizations,” Rogers told the Senate in 2017. “It didn’t have the same level of sourcing and the same level of multiple sources.”
A 2018 report from the Republican-led House Intelligence Committee concluded that “the majority of the Intelligence Community Assessment judgments on Russia’s election activities employed proper analytic tradecraft” but found the “judgments on Putin’s strategic intentions did not.”
unmasking saga
The newly-declassified FBI records also show Rogers attempted to distance himself from the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation.
“ADM Rogers has not been specifically briefed on the FBI investigation into the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election and the nature of links between those efforts and the Trump campaign,” the notes read.” However, ADM Rogers was aware the NSA has received Letterhead Memoranda from the FBI requesting information mostly on specific interactions with U.S. Persons. ADM Rogers was aware the FBI was ‘following specific individuals’ but was not certain if it was because of the ongoing work on the ICA or for another reason.”
The FBI notes also say that “Rogers was surprised when Comey told the committee in open session on March 20, 2017 that the FBI was investigating potential links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian interference… Comey did not tell him in advance about the ongoing set of investigations.”
A host of top Obama officials received information in response to “unmasking” requests targeting retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn in the final weeks of the Obama administration, according to a memo declassified in 2020.
Republicans have alleged since 2017 that Obama-era officials improperly unmasked associates of then-candidate Trump’s presidential campaign during the Russia collusion investigation, while Democrats have defended the intelligence-gathering process, arguing that the collection of identifying information is inevitable.
John Durham said Rogers cast doubt on collusion claims during an interview with the special counsel team.
“Admiral Mike Rogers served as the Director of NSA during the relevant time period,” the 2023 report said. “When asked about any awareness he had of any evidence of collusion as asserted in the Steele Reports, he stated that he did not recall any intelligence that supported the collusion assertions in that reporting, nor did he have any discussions during the Summer of 2016 with his counterparts in the intelligence community about collusion between the Russians and any Republicans.