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Gabbard is promoting a 2020 report she recently declassified that she claims shows Obama manufactured the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.
The report, prepared by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, doesn’t include anything new. It sought to review the 2017 intelligence community’s assessment that Russia tried to influence the presidential election the year before.
While the GOP report found that the intelligence community’s assessment was “sound,” it took issue with the intelligence community’s judgment that Russian President Vladimir Putin “aspired” to help Trump. The report said that conclusion was based on one piece of human intelligence that was open to different interpretations. It added that some CIA officers objected to including the judgment about Putin’s intentions, arguing that the intelligence behind it was insufficient.
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.
