Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Wednesday declassified documents she claims prove intelligence officials in the Obama administration lied about Russia\u2019s efforts to influence the 2016 election.<\/p>\n
The 44-page review<\/a> of how U.S. spy agencies under then-President Barack Obama arrived at their conclusions was led by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee and ordered in the aftermath of Donald Trump\u2019s win over Hillary Clinton in 2016.<\/p>\n The move comes days after Gabbard released a separate tranche of documents<\/a> on the 2016 election that she claimed showed evidence that senior intelligence officials under Obama had mounted a \u201cyears-long coup\u201d to undermine Trump and were guilty of a \u201ctreasonous conspiracy.\u201d<\/p>\n She amped up her rhetoric again on Wednesday.<\/p>\n The documents contain \u201cirrefutable evidence that details how President Obama and his national security team directed the creation of an intelligence community assessment that they knew was false,\u201d Gabbard said in a surprise appearance at a White House press conference Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n Congressional Democrats cast the release of the documents as a reckless bid to appease Trump and claimed the GOP-led congressional review itself was deeply flawed.<\/p>\n \u201cReleasing this so-called report is just another reckless act by a Director of National Intelligence so desperate to please Donald Trump that she is willing to risk classified sources, betray our allies, and politicize the very intelligence she has been entrusted to protect,\u201d Senate Intelligence Vice Chair Mark Warner (D-Va.) said in a press release.<\/p>\n Like a more recent review of the 2016 election put out this month<\/a> by CIA Director John Ratcliffe, the House Intelligence report offered significant criticism of the intelligence community \u2014 though it was much more measured than the way Gabbard, Ratcliffe and other Republicans characterized the newly released documents publicly.<\/p>\n On the ODNI\u2019s website, the report was described as a \u201cDeclassified HPSCI Report on the Manufactured Russia Hoax.\u201d But the GOP-led review did not question the intelligence community’s assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a series of influence operations and hack-and-leak efforts against Clinton.<\/p>\n It also took no issue with the determination that Putin sought to undermine both American democracy generally and Clinton, who the Russian leader assumed would be the country\u2019s next president.<\/p>\n \u201cMost ICA judgments on Russian activities in the U.S. election employed proper tradecraft and were consistent with observed Russian behavior,\u201d the review stated.<\/p>\n It found fault mainly with how the intelligence community arrived at its third high-confidence assessment about that year\u2019s election: that Putin and others in the Russian government wanted to see Trump in the White House.<\/p>\n Obama-era intelligence officials based their conclusion largely on a \u201cscant, unclear and unverifiable fragment\u201d from a single spy source, the report said. It also argued that the agency did not adhere to spy community standards in sufficiently considering alternative explanations for Putin\u2019s actions or informing policymakers of intelligence that called his alleged preference for Trump into question.<\/p>\n For example, the report said Russian intelligence services had explosive information on Clinton that they never leaked to the press. That included information allegedly indicating Clinton had significant health issues, the report said.<\/p>\n The report heaps significant criticism on then-CIA Director John Brennan. It finds Brennan pushed for inclusion of the assessment on Putin\u2019s preference for Trump in the aftermath of the 2016 vote and against the recommendation of some analysts beneath him.<\/p>\n Brennan could not be reached for comment. But a spokesperson for Obama offered a rare public rebuke<\/a> of the allegations after Trump accused the former president and other former senior officials of treason on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n The House panel’s report in some places echoed the CIA’s recent review. Both raise questions about how few intelligence officials were involved in conducting the assessment, and whether Obama administration officials were transparent about the extent to which they relied on the now-debunked Steele dossier<\/a>, for example.<\/p>\n