A 2017 intelligence assessment found that Russia waged an information warfare campaign designed to boost Trump’s prospects and damage Hillary Clinton's candidacy.

A declassified CIA report weakened an earlier determination that Russia’s Vladimir Putin had “aspired” to help elect Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election, supporting President Trump’s longstanding claim that the Kremlin played no role in his victory.

The new, “lessons-learned” review ordered by Ratcliffe in May was meant to examine the tradecraft that went into the intelligence community’s 2017 assessment on Russian interference and to scrutinize in particular the conclusion that Putin “aspired” to help Trump win.