A newly declassified memo ordered by CIA Director John Ratcliffe questions the intelligence community’s 2017 assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win.

While the memo criticizes aspects of the report's methodology—such as reliance on unverified sources like the Steele dossier—it does not disprove the original conclusions or address the substantial evidence supporting them, including findings by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee and Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

“This report doesn’t change any of the underlying evidence—in fact it doesn’t even address any of that evidence,” says Brian Taylor, director the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs. Taylor suggests the report may have been intended to reinforce Trump’s claims that investigations into his ties to Russia are part of a Democratic hoax.

“Good intelligence analysts will tell you their job is to speak truth to power,” Taylor says. “If they tell the leader what he wants to hear, you often get flawed intelligence.”

Read more in the Associated Press article, “New CIA report criticizes investigation into Russia’s support for Trump in 2016.”