Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has declassified another tranche of documents about the 2016 elections – a day after President Donald Trump accused Barack Obama of ‘treason’ and said he should be investigated.
Gabbard ordered the release of a 2020 report by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on Russia’s attempts to influence the 2016 presidential election.
Although Trump won that election, he has long railed against what he calls the Russia ‘hoax’ cooked up by Democrats to try and link his campaign to the foreign adversary.
Accusations of collusion with Russia marred his first term in the White House, but the Mueller report didn’t find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it ‘conspired or coordinated with the Russian government.’
Trump is now calling for investigations of top Obama national security officials at the time while referring to the ex-president as the leader of a ‘gang’ out to get him.
The report by the House Intelligence Committee, then chaired by Trump ally Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) found the nation’s spies reached ‘credible’ assessments that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered ‘conventional and cyber influence operations’ by leaking hacked emails.
But it also disputed an intel assessment, released in 2017, that Putin ‘developed a clear preference’ for Trump and ‘aspired to help his chances of victory.’ That conclusion has long infuriated Trump.
It said these conclusions did not ‘adhere to the tenets’ of intelligence tradecraft.
The declassified report put the onus on Obama and dismissed its composition, calling it a ‘high-profile product ordered by the President, directed by senior IC agency heads, and created by just five CIA analysts, using one principal drafter.’
Gabbard last week released an initial report accusing Obama of overseeing a ‘treasonous conspiracy’ against Trump.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has released a 2020 report by the Republican-run House Intel Committee that picks apart a 2017 Intelligence Community assessment of Russian election interference
On Tuesday night at a meeting at the White House with House Republicans, Trump called Gabbard the ‘hottest’ person in the room.
That comes despite indications the pair had a falling out over the recent attack Trump ordered on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
She was reportedly sidelined in the Trump administration’s discussions about its options in the ongoing war between Iran and Israel ever since she posted a controversial video.
The video from her trip to Hiroshima, Japan, in early June showed a simulation of San Francisco getting bombed and warning about imminent ‘nuclear annihilation,’ angering Trump officials who said she was speaking out of turn.
But over a month later, the president changed his tune as she presses for more on Obama’s Russia hoax connections.
‘She’s like, hotter than everybody. She’s the hottest one in the room right now because she found out. … I think we knew it before, in all fairness, Tulsi, but now you have certainty. She has all the documents. She has everything that you need. And she found out that Barack Hussein Obama led a group of people, and they cheated in the elections, and they cheated without question,’ Trump told his allies.
Gabbard, an anti-interventionist, had testified in March that the intelligence community ‘continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon’ despite its big stockpiled of enriched Uranium.
Gabbard appeared on the conservative Newsmax network Tuesday night, and contested a scathing statement by Obama, who had called the resurfaced allegations ‘bizarre’ and a ‘distraction.’
‘We will be releasing further documents tomorrow that will refute that statement,’ Gabbard said.
The backdrop for the throwback drama over the 2016 election – rather than the 2020 race Trump repeatedly calls ‘rigged’ – are the series of stunning disclosures about the Jeffrey Epstein case that have rocked the White House and divided the MAGA movement.
President Donald Trump accused Barack Obama of ‘treason’ and has praised his own Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard
Gabbard’s testimony on Iran’s nuclear program were inconvenient as the administration moved to bomb Iran. But on Tuesday Trump called her the ‘hottest’ person in the room and said she ‘has all the documents’
