Former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan Barb McQuade is criticizing FBI for interviewing current and former CIA officers regarding former CIA Director John Brennan and the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment that found Russia sought to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.
[NOTE: President Trump has long referred to the investigation (which was initiated by President Barack Obama) as a “Russian hoax,” even though a bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee investigation in 2020 concluded that the assessment was accurate. Trump’s Secretary of State, then-Senator Marco Rubio was the chair of the Committee and backed the findings of the investigation.]
17 US intelligence agencies found that Russia interfered with the 2016 presidential election. The US government had a duty to investigate it. Trying to spin the probe as a grand conspiracy is itself the grand conspiracy. https://t.co/AqiAaF6ZWm
— Barb McQuade (@BarbMcQuade) May 13, 2026
McQuade wrote: “17 US intelligence agencies found that Russia interfered with the 2016 presidential election. The US government had a duty to investigate it. Trying to spin the probe as a grand conspiracy is itself the grand conspiracy.”
Trump has questioned the “17 agencies” claim (which Hillary Clinton emphasized in one of the 2016 presidential debates), when it was just four — the CIA, FBI, National Security Agency, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence — that gathered the intelligence for the assessment.
Obama’s DNI, Daniel Coats, clarified at the Aspen Security Forum in July 2021 that while agencies, including the U.S. Coast Guard, were not involved in the assessment, “there is no dissent among U.S. spy agencies that Russia meddled in the election.”
Trump’s CIA Director Mike Pompeo also said: “I am confident that the Russians meddled in this election, as is the entire intelligence community.”