Hey, I'm Robert Draper, I'm a writer at large for the New York Times magazine.

And I have a story coming out on the cover of the August 16th edition.

And I came to this story in a pretty unorthodox fashion.

It was a tip that was provided to me by an intelligence official who I've known for a while.

And the tip was rather alarming, it indicated that a very sensitive government document,

a product of the intelligence community, known as a National Intelligence Assessment, had been

altered, changes in government documents take place all the time. But what was alarming and unique

about this particular one was that the change was made out of fear that leaving it the way it was

might upset the president. So this became the point of departure for what would be a five-month

investigation into this very fraught relationship between a president who has narrative preferences

of his own and a community of individuals whose job it is to present the facts however uncomfortable

they may be. Unwanted truths inside Trump's battles with US intelligence agencies

written by Robert Draper, read by Eduardo Ballerini.

An early July of last year, the first draft of a classified document known as a National Intelligence

Estimate circulated among key members of the agencies making up the US intelligence community.

NIEs are intended to be that community's most authoritative class of top secret document,

reflecting its consensus judgment on national security matters ranging from Iran's nuclear capabilities

to global terrorism. The draft of the July 2019 NIE ran to about 15 pages with another 10 pages

of appendices and source notes. According to multiple officials who saw it, the document

discussed Russia's ongoing efforts to influence US elections, the 2020 presidential contest,

and 2024's as well. It was compiled by a working group consisting of about a dozen senior analysts

led by Christopher Bort, a veteran national intelligence officer with nearly four decades of

...