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Gabbard is drawing attention to a 2020 report she has recently made public, claiming it indicates that Obama manipulated the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment regarding Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election.
This report, which was authored by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, does not present any new information. Its purpose was to examine the 2017 assessment by the intelligence community that suggested Russia attempted to sway the presidential election held the previous year.
The Republican report agreed that the intelligence community’s assessment was “sound,” but disagreed with the judgment concerning Russian President Vladimir Putin’s alleged intention to assist Trump. The report noted that this conclusion hinged on a single piece of human intelligence that could be interpreted in various ways. It also mentioned that some CIA personnel opposed the inclusion of conclusions about Putin’s motives, citing inadequate intelligence to substantiate it.
The intelligence community had concluded in its 2017 assessment that Russia launched an information war to damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign and boost Trump’s election prospects. A bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report in 2020 reached the same conclusions.
Without evidence and pushing the conspiracy theory Trump has been promoting, Gabbard accused Obama today of ordering the original assessment. “President Obama directed an intelligence community assessment to be created to further this contrived false narrative that ultimately led to a yearslong coup to try to undermine President Trump’s presidency,” she told reporters at the White House briefing today.
Gabbard repeated her view that Russia used influence operations to try to undermine the democratic process in 2016, but she rejected the 2017 intelligence assessment that Moscow was trying to help Trump win. Citing the Republican House report, Gabbard said Putin could have damaged Clinton further by spreading derogatory information his intelligence services had collected about her but chose not to. Gabbard argued that that contradicted the idea that Putin sought to boost Trump’s chances.
Asked whether the declassified GOP report implicates Obama in criminal behavior, Gabbard said she has referred and will continue to refer those related documents to the Justice Department and the FBI to “investigate the criminal implications of this.”
Speaking to reporters yesterday, Trump accused Obama of “treason,” falsely claiming he rigged the 2016 and 2020 elections. Obama’s office said the claims are “outrageous” and “bizarre.”
Obama’s office didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment on Gabbard’s accusations today.
