The Central Intelligence Agency’s unprecedented move to retract nineteen intelligence reports covering the years 2015 to 2023 has laid bare a deep-seated problem of politicization within America’s spy agencies – a trend critics trace back to the Obama administration and see as accelerated under President Joe Biden. The retractions, announced Friday, come on the heels of the CIA’s self-criticism last year concerning its flawed analysis of alleged collusion with Russia during the 2016 presidential election.
Many of the now-retracted reports focused on themes of diversity, equity, and inclusion, offering CIA analysis on subjects like the demographics of white women, motherhood, violent extremism, LGBTQ issues, and abortion – topics that critics charge fall far outside the agency’s core national security mission.
The CIA’s withdrawal of reports on Friday is being interpreted as the latest symptom of a decade-long trend toward the politicization of intelligence. Critics point to a pattern that includes:
- A Biden administration Justice Department memo targeting concerned parents at school board meetings.
- An FBI memorandum singling out traditionalist Catholics as potential threats.
- The intelligence community’s assessment that sought to tie Donald Trump to Russia.
For analysts, these incidents amount to a systematic erosion of the objectivity and impartiality that are supposed to underpin the collection and analysis of intelligence.