Gabbard discloses further Russia-related documents, alleging Obama of fabricating intelligence
In a significant development, a declassified 44-page House Intelligence Committee report, released by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, has presented evidence and arguments that question the confidence of intelligence officials in the Obama administration regarding Russian President Vladimir Putin's alleged preference for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.
The report challenges the conclusion that Putin favoured Trump, stating this assessment was based on a "scant, unclear and unverifiable fragment" from a single spy source. It argues that the intelligence community did not properly consider alternative explanations or fully inform policymakers about intelligence that cast doubt on Putin’s alleged Trump preference.
Key points from the report include:
- The report does not dispute Russia’s overall efforts to undermine American democracy or Hillary Clinton's campaign but questions the intelligence community’s confidence that Putin favoured Trump’s victory specifically. - It criticizes then-CIA Director John Brennan for pushing to include the assessment of Putin’s Trump preference in the post-election intelligence reports despite reservations from some analysts. - The intellectual underpinnings of the assessment are said to rely heavily on the Steele dossier, which the report implies was not adequately scrutinized or transparently presented. - The report points out that Russian intelligence had potentially damaging information on Clinton, such as concerning her health, which was never leaked, raising questions about the narratives surrounding the interference. - The House report’s findings on intelligence failures and distortions stand in contrast to a multivolume Senate Intelligence Committee review, which reportedly did not find similar issues.
The report also includes an explanation of some judgments being based on a human intelligence source with secondhand access for specifics, including Putin's order to pass collected material to WikiLeaks, Putin's views on Hillary Clinton, and details about "specific, planned Russian Foreign Intelligence Service efforts."
It is important to note that the report does not argue that the Obama administration "manufactured" the assessment. The newly redacted House report was not ultimately released before Trump left office in 2021, though an unredacted copy of the documents went missing and was apparently never found.
The Ratcliffe-led CIA, in its review, found that the "aspire" judgment was "plausible and sensible, but was an inference rather than fact sourced to multiple reporting streams."
This release of the report comes at a moment when Tulsi Gabbard's standing within the Trump administration had been in question, and it is part of a broader effort from Gabbard and other Trump allies to attack the FBI’s Russia investigation and the intelligence community’s assessment on Russian election interference. The implications of these findings are still being debated, with the claims remaining contested, notably by Senate investigations and other intelligence officials who uphold the original assessments about Russian interference.
- The declassified House Intelligence Committee report, released by Tulsi Gabbard, argues against the confidence in the Obama administration's intelligence community regarding Putin's alleged preference for Trump.
- The report questions the basis of the assessment, stating it was built on a single, unverifiable spy source.
- The report criticizes John Brennan for pushing to include the assessment of Putin's Trump preference in post-election reports, despite reservations from some analysts.
- The Steele dossier is implied as not being adequately scrutinized or transparently presented in the assessment's intellectual underpinnings.
- Russian intelligence had information potentially damaging to Hillary Clinton, such as her health, which wasn't leaked, according to the report.
- The Senate Intelligence Committee's review reportedly did not find similar issues on intelligence failures and distortions mentioned in the House report.
- The report explains some judgments were based on a human intelligence source with secondhand access to specifics.
- The Ratcliffe-led CIA found that the "aspire" judgment was an inference rather than a fact sourced from multiple reporting streams.
- Tulsi Gabbard's standing within the Trump administration had been a point of question, and the report's release is part of a broader effort to attack the FBI’s Russia investigation.
- The implications of these findings are still being debated, with the claims remaining contested, notably by Senate investigations and other intelligence officials.
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