By Zachary Stieber
Contributing Writer
The CIA has retracted or substantially revised 19 intelligence reports after finding they contained political bias and fell short of CIA standards.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe said in a Friday statement that the reports “fall short of the high standards of impartiality that CIA must uphold and do not reflect the expertise for which our analysts are renowned.”
“There is absolutely no room for bias in our work, and when we identify instances where analytic rigor has been compromised, we have a responsibility to correct the record. These actions underscore our commitment to transparency, accountability and objective intelligence analysis,” he added
The President’s Intelligence Advisory Board identified the reports during a review of hundreds of CIA analyses produced in the past 10 years, officials said. President Donald Trump named new members of the board, including former Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., and Katie Miller, the wife of Trump adviser Stephen Miller, in February 2025.
Deputy CIA Director Michael Ellis led an internal review that concurred the reports did not meet CIA standards, according to the agency.
One of the reports, dated January 2015, said that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the Middle East and North Africa were “under pressure” from governments there, saying that this was “hindering U.S. initiatives” in support of rights for those people.
A second report, produced in July 2020, said that the COVID-19 pandemic was hurting access to contraceptives in developing countries, which it said would “probably undermine efforts to address population pressures there that are hindering economic development.”
A third, from October 2021, detailed what analysts said were women who had adopted roles “to participate in white racially and ethnically motivated violent extremism and contribute to the endurance and resonance of its narratives worldwide.”
Ratcliffe directed the release of redacted versions of the reports, the CIA said, describing them as showing “substantial deviations from the president’s expectations that CIA’s workforce remains independent from a particular audience, agenda, or policy viewpoint.”
The other reports that officials say contained bias have not been identified.
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement that prior administrations “mixed intelligence analysis and politics far too often.” He commended Ratcliffe “for correcting the record and ensuring that the CIA’s analysis is free of any political bias.”
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the top Democrat on the panel, said in a statement that politics should not play a role in judging CIA products.
“The President’s Intelligence Advisory Board plays an important advisory role, but it is not a substitute for the independent analytic judgment of the CIA and the broader intelligence community,” he said.
“When a politically appointed body appears to be dictating what analysis is acceptable, it risks eroding confidence in the objectivity of our intelligence.”
