CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard appear to have rattled some cages with their recent revelations about the genesis of the Russia collusion hoax.
Former DNI James Clapper indicated that he would “lawyer up.” Ex-CIA Director John Brennan went on MSNBC to once again play the victim, claiming this was just the president’s effort to “try to get back at those individuals who have criticized him openly and publicly in the past.” Former Secretary of State John Kerry, among those present at the 2016 meeting where Obama reportedly got the ball rolling on the hoax, remains in virtual hiding, having locked his tweets on X ahead of President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January.
Among the deep-staters now barking and on the defensive is Susan Miller, an ex-spy who was with the CIA for 39 years. As can be expected with spies, she does not appear to be exactly as advertised.
On the latest leg of her recent media tour, Miller — a good friend of former Obama official and Democratic megadonor Caroline Kennedy — focused on painting Gabbard as a liar and on denying the damning new evidence about the Obama administration’s manufacture of the Russia collusion narrative.
Last week, Gabbard published the newly declassified House Intelligence Committee majority staff report concerning the development of the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment — the document that set the stage for years of Russia-collusion smears, two congressional impeachments, and multiple arrests.
The report found that the Obama administration’s ICA, produced by the CIA, NSA, and FBI under the auspices of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence:
- misrepresented reports that vociferous Trump critic and then-CIA Director John Brennan had ordered the publication of “as reliable, without mentioning their significant underlying flaws”;
- “ignored or selectively quoted reliable intelligence reports that challenged — and in some cases undermined — judgments that Putin sought to elect Trump”;
- violated analytic standards when citing British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s dossier — a political opposition research report paid for in part by the Clinton campaign that Brennan included in the ICA despite high-level credibility concerns and internal opposition;
- propped up the narrative that Russian President Vladimir Putin “aspired” to help Trump win on “one scant, unclear, and unverifiable fragment of a sentence” from a “substandard report” that CIA officers initially omitted but were ordered by Brennan to include despite protest;
- failed to consider alternative explanations of Putin’s intentions indicated by intelligence that was actually reliable;
- was written by five CIA analysts handpicked by Brennan; and
- was rushed out by Brennan “in order to publish two weeks before President-elect Trump was sworn in.”
The DNI noted in a thread on X that the newly released documents “detail a treasonous conspiracy by officials at the highest levels of the Obama White House to subvert the will of the American people and try to usurp the President from fulfilling his mandate.”
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Photo by Gilbert Carrasquillo/FilmMagic
Gabbard suggested that the evidence directly points to former President Barack Obama “leading the manufacturing of this intelligence assessment.”
“The director of national intelligence and the White House are lying, again,” Miller said in a recent NBC News interview.
“It is clear that Trump and his followers have a script they want to follow, despite the facts.”
‘We ignored all of it.’
Miller, who retired in 2024 and still has her security clearance, denied a number of the House report’s findings, claiming, for instance, that Brennan neither pressured nor micromanaged her team; that the evidence-based suggestion that Brennan fabricated intelligence about the 2016 election to undermine Trump was “baseless”; and that the task force examined every angle.
The counterintelligence expert who has openly likened President Donald Trump to a “dictator” suggested further that the drafters of the assessment maintained political neutrality, telling NBC News: “There were people that hated Trump that wanted us to find that Trump was complicit. And there were those that loved Trump. They wanted us to find nothing. And we ignored all of it.”
Miller, doing her apparent best to seed a narrative charitable to Obama cabalists on cable news, suggested to CNN that the intelligence her team relied on was “extremely sound, and it was verified,” and that the assessment’s findings were “not at all” based on the Steele dossier. She claimed, however, that former FBI Director James Comey got his way to incorporate the Clinton opposition research into the ICA, but only after the bureau threatened not to endorse the assessment.
‘I indeed did not write the ICA.’
There has been a lack of clarity in recent media reports about Miller’s actual role with regard to the ICA.
Investigative reporter Matt Taibbi told Blaze News that he was “a bit skeptical about this media tour and … curious about her exact role with the ICA.”
CNN identified her as “an author of the agency’s 2017 intelligence report on Russian election meddling.” NBC News said she “helped oversee the 2017 intelligence assessment on Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.” According to Mustang News’ recent puff piece, “she authored the initial report proving the Russians interfered in the 2016 election in an attempt to sway the presidential election in Donald Trump’s favor.”
By contrast, a source familiar with the assessment told Blaze News that “Susan Miller was not an author of the 2017 ICA.”
The suggestion by this reputable source serves to justify Taibbi’s skepticism.
When pressed for comment, Miller told Blaze News, “My team and I at CIA wrote a CIA analysis about Russian influence on the election.”
Photo (left): Kevin Dietsch/Getty Image; Photo (right): Ethan Miller/Getty Images
“This was a CIA report, briefed to Trump by our then-director, and by me to the Senate and congressional intelligence committees. The DNI used that report as the basis for the ICA,” continued Miller. “I indeed did not write the ICA, but the ODNI used my report as the basis for theirs.”
The Justice Department’s new task force aimed at investigating “potential next legal steps which might stem from DNI Gabbard’s disclosures” might eventually achieve a better understanding of Miller’s role in what Gabbard has referred to as a “treasonous conspiracy.”
Miller told the Guardian, another stop on her denial tour, that she has secured D.C.-based attorney Mark Zaid to represent her.
Neither the CIA nor the DOJ responded by deadline to Blaze News’ requests for comment.
When asked about Miller and whether the president would like to see her investigated in connection with the ICA, White House spokesman David Ingle said in a statement to Blaze News, “Thanks to President Trump and Director Gabbard’s leadership, the American people can finally see the Russia, Russia, Russia collusion narrative for what it really was — a total hoax and political witch hunt to snub President Trump’s historic first term in office.”
Ingle added, “The White House is appreciative of Director Gabbard’s commitment to transparency and effort to end the weaponization of government against American citizens.”
Miller has clearly secured the admiration of fellow deep-staters. She received the CIA Director’s Award for Extraordinary Fidelity and Essential Service four times after she apparently helped with the Russia collusion hoax and is set to receive the International Spy Museum’s Hidden Hero Award in November.
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