Same News Orgs That Pushed Russia Hoax Now Claim Gabbard’s Intel Bombshells Are Misleading

Legacy media outlets that pushed the Russia collusion hoax are downplaying bombshell documents released by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, which reveal that the Obama administration suppressed intelligence proving that Russian meddling did not impact the 2016 election. 

The documents show that President Barack Obama ordered a new intelligence community assessment into alleged Russian meddling just one day after the suppression of an intel draft report showed Russia had no impact on election results. In response to the documents, media outlets have accused Gabbard of “rewriting” history around the Obama administration’s role in perpetuating the Russia narrative.  

On Tuesday, CNN published an article suggesting that Gabbard was “misleading” the public about the Russia hoax, saying that her “allegations about the Russia investigation don’t add up.” NBC published an article claiming that Gabbard was attempting to “rewrite the history of the 2016 election.” 

The articles claim that Gabbard said there were no Russian efforts to interfere in the election at all. But Gabbard’s memo on the declassified documents actually notes that there “is still supporting evidence indicating the Russian government directed hacking” of the Democratic National Committee. 

What the media outlets dismiss is that the newly-released documents show a consensus in December 2019 from intelligence officials that Russia did not impact the outcome of the election, and that Russia did not have the ability to actually impact the election results.

For example, talking points from the office of then-National Intelligence Director James Clapper on December 7 found that “Foreign adversaries did not use cyberattacks on election infrastructure to alter the US Presidential election outcome” and that “We have no evidence of cyber manipulation of election infrastructure intended to alter results.”

A Presidential Daily Briefing draft for December 8, 2016, contains the same points. 

“We assess Russian and criminal actors did not impact recent US election results by conducting malicious cyber activities against election infrastructure,” intelligence officials stated in the unpublished draft.

An intelligence official killed the publication of the draft that day due to “high administration interest,” and the FBI yanked co-authorship to draft a dissent. 

Just one day later, on December 9, Obama asked the intelligence community to come up with a new assessment of Russian meddling. That same day, The Washington Post published an article citing anonymous intelligence officials who said that the CIA concluded that Russia “intervened” to help Trump win the presidency, “rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system.” 

As Gabbard’s memo notes, “there is no official [intelligence community] assessment that contains that conclusion.”

CNN’s Tuesday article also cited unnamed “congressional sources” who disputed Gabbard’s claim that the discredited Steele Dossier — paid for by the Clinton campaign — informed the January 2017 intelligence assessment commissioned by Obama that claimed a larger role for Russia in the 2016 election. 

However, as documents released by Gabbard show, an intelligence community whistleblower was informed that the Steele Dossier “was a factor” in the Obama 2017 Russia intelligence assessment. Then-CIA Director John Ratcliffe also found that the dossier was included in the assessment, writing in a recent report that this “ran counter to fundamental tradecraft principles and ultimately undermined the credibility of a key judgment.”

Both CNN and NBC also said that the intelligence community never claimed Russia hacked the 2016 election. But nearly two-thirds of Democrats polled in 2018 believed that Russian hacking changed voting totals in the election. 

That came after headlines like “Obama orders review of Russian election-related hacking” from CNN and “U.S. Officials: Putin Personally Involved in U.S. Election Hack” from NBC. 

Gabbard has reportedly sent a criminal referral to the Justice Department over the Obama administration’s intelligence assessment in January 2017.

“There’s no question in my mind that this intelligence community assessment that President Obama ordered be published which contained a manufactured intelligence document — it’s worse than even politicization of intelligence,” Gabbard told Fox News last week. “It was manufactured intelligence that sought to achieve President Obama and his team’s objective, which was undermining President Trump’s presidency and subverting the will of the American people.”