Newly declassified CIA documents and emails reveal a troubling picture of how then-Vice President Joe Biden handled intelligence about his family’s dealings in Ukraine. The evidence suggests that Biden wasn’t just managing political optics abroad; he also interfered with the flow of intelligence at home, in what officials now describe as “rare and unusual” behavior.
“At the specific request of then-Vice President Joe Biden, the CIA buried an embarrassing intelligence report detailing the poor view the Ukrainian government took of his diplomatic efforts and the business dealings of his own family in that country,” reports RealClearPolitics.
When Biden traveled to Kyiv in December 2015, the trip was billed as a show of solidarity with Ukraine’s young democracy. In public, he warned against “the cancer of corruption.” But behind the scenes, Ukrainian officials were unimpressed. They described “bewilderment and disappointment” that Biden came only to deliver “a generic speech.” Poroshenko’s administration had expected real leadership, some clarity on where Washington stood, yet all it got was a lecture.
After Biden’s return, cynicism deepened. Members of the Poroshenko administration “privately mused” about the hypocrisy of it all: the American media’s refusal to investigate “the alleged ties” of Biden’s own family “to corrupt business practices in Ukraine.” To them, it was proof of “a double standard within the United States Government towards matters of corruption and political power.”
Such was the blunt determination of a 2016 report prepared by the CIA and reviewed by RealClearPolitics. It would have been a humiliating assessment for Biden, whom President Obama had entrusted with all things Ukraine. So the vice president and his team killed it.
Such was the blunt determination of a 2016 report prepared by the CIA and reviewed by RealClearPolitics. It would have been a humiliating assessment for Biden, whom President Obama had entrusted with all things Ukraine. So the vice president and his team killed it.
In an email sent to the CIA on Feb. 10, 2016, an individual in the office of the Director of National Intelligence wrote, “I just spoke with VP/NSA and he would strongly prefer the report not/not [sic] be disseminated,” a reference to Biden and to Colin Kahl, who served as his national security advisor.
“Thanks for understanding,” concluded an individual responsible for delivering the president’s daily brief, a summary of intelligence and analysis presented in the Oval Office each morning.
The buried report and the accompanying correspondence from Biden’s team are only now coming to light. They are the latest tranche of documents declassified by CIA Director John Ratcliffe as the Trump administration continues its review of how intelligence is collected and reported.
The newly uncovered CIA documents are heavily redacted, but what’s visible is damning enough. A senior CIA official confirmed that the agency recently discovered the files and claimed that it released them for the sake of “transparency” and to prevent the “weaponization or politicization” of intelligence. That line alone tells you they know exactly how bad this looks.
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After-action reports aren’t unusual, but this one crossed a serious line. Someone inside the intelligence community sought Joe Biden’s sign-off before the report ever reached President Obama. The email subject line — “OVP query regarding draft” — says it all. Biden’s team demanded a review of intelligence about Ukraine and his family’s dealings before the president saw it and then had it buried. CIA analysts later determined the report held real “intelligence value” and could have aided U.S. policymakers. But Biden made sure it never saw daylight, burying anything that might expose his family’s conflicts while preaching about fighting corruption abroad.
Former CIA Director John Ratcliffe called the suppression of the 2016 report a textbook case of “politicization of intelligence.” Even current officials admit the agency is now scrambling to restore integrity, pledging “zero tolerance” for the kind of political interference that Biden once wielded to protect himself.
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