In a June 26, 2025 report, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agreed with previous findings that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election to help Donald Trump defeat Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Trump had previously repeatedly denied this.
This is reported by Bloomberg, citing a CIA report.
Trumpʼs nominee for director of the Central Intelligence Agency John Ratcliffe said he had ordered a focus on the most controversial claim in the previous report — that Putin sought to help Donald Trump win the election. The report found no evidence to refute that claim.
The eight-page document cited certain “procedural anomalies” that could help improve the handling of controversial or politically charged topics, while emphasizing the “analytical rigor” of the assessment and the strict adherence to intelligence standards in the 2016 report. It also said the findings should not be interpreted as suggesting that the intelligence community’s processes are more seriously flawed.
The findings complicate Ratcliffeʼs relationship with Trump, who has called Russian election interference a "total hoax" and criticized the initial findings, a dispute that underlies his adversarial relationship with the intelligence community.
When the CIA director declassified and released the report on July 2, 2025, he did not mention that he was confirming previous findings. Instead, he wrote in X that Obama-era officials “manipulated intelligence and silenced professionals—all to get to Trump”.
CIA findings from 2016
In 2016, the CIA concluded that the Russian government had interfered in the election to support Trump’s candidacy against Hillary Clinton. The Russian government ran a large-scale hacking operation aimed at interfering in the election and undermining trust in American democracy before it morphed into an operation to harm Clinton.
Russia has repeatedly denied these accusations, and Trump has stated that the US should move on and not retaliate against Russia.
Accusations of election interference prompted then-President Barack Obama to impose sanctions on senior Russian intelligence officials and expel Russian diplomats.
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