There's a good chance this came out when it was clear that the administration was never going to allow details to be released. They kept the CIA director from briefing Congress on this assessment. At some point the pressure to correct public falsehoods builds and takes other channels.

These are the same morons who got dozens of their assets killed because they left their chat completely unsecured to the point it could be found in Google search results.

The days of G-men are over, it's a bunch of Ivy league clowns whose daddies couldn't get them a job on wall street.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18376089

https://newrepublic.com/article/113216/ryan-fogle-cia-spy-ar...

Of course in this case it's just the CIA trying to sway the public. Look up Operation Mockingbird and then remember that Anderson Cooper interned with the CIA