1. In the summer of 2016, CIA Director John Brennan convened a “secret task force at CIA headquarters composed of several dozen analysts and officers from the CIA, the NSA and the FBI.”

2. This unit was so secretive it functioned as a “sealed compartment” hidden even from the rest of the U.S. intelligence community; a unit whose workers were all made to sign additional non-disclosure forms.

3. The unit reported to top officials:
The first was Obama and fewer than 14 senior officials. The second was a team of specialists at the CIA, NSA and FBI who took direction from the task force on where to aim their subsequent efforts to collect more Russia intelligence.

4. The number of Obama administration officials allowed access to Russia intelligence was highly limited. At first only four senior officials were involved: Brennan, Clapper, Loretta Lynch and James Comey. Their aides were all barred from attending the initial meetings.

5. Gradually, the circle widened to include Joe Biden and others. Agendas sent to Cabinet secretaries — including John F. Kerry at State Department & Ashton Carter at Pentagon — arrived in envelopes that subordinates were not to open.

6. Sometimes the agendas were withheld until participants had taken their seats in the Situation Room.
When the closed Cabinet sessions on Russia began in the White House Situation Room in August 2016, the video feed from the main room was cut off during the meetings.

7. The feed, which allows only for video and not audio, is usually kept on so that senior aides can see when a meeting takes place. https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/05/21/spygate-obama-admin-cut-situation-rooms-video-feed-during-meetings-on-russia-investigation/

8. The blacked-out screens were seen as an ominous sign among lower-level White House officials who were largely kept in the dark about the Russia deliberations even as they were tasked with generating options for retaliation against Moscow.

9. The compartmentalization helps explain why it was only Brennan’s CIA, Comey’s FBI and NSA penned January 6, 2017 U.S. Intelligence Community report alleging Russian interference in the presidential race.

10. News media reports originally falsely claimed the report was authored by all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies.

11. The ever expanding circle of high level officials is how Joe Biden, Sally Yates & James Comey came to be present in the fateful Jan 5 2017
meeting documented by Susan Rice in her last day in office: "President Obama wants everything done by the book" https://twitter.com/rising_serpent/status/1135358463347965952?s=19