Tulsi Gabbard report unmasks Obama administration's plot to sabotage Trump's 2016 win

The director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has declassified documents that she says reveal how the Obama administration manipulated intelligence information to create the "Russiagate" narrative, a plot that accused Russia of interfering in the 2016 election to favor Donald Trump.

That report, released Friday, has generated controversy by exposing what Gabbard describes as an "abuse of power" that sought to undermine Trump's presidency.

According to the declassified documents, multiple intelligence agencies, including the FBI, CIA and Department of Homeland Security (DHS), concluded before the 2016 election that Russia was “probably not trying to influence the election by using cyber means.”

For example, an August 31, 2016, report cited by Gabbard indicates that a DHS official informed then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper that "there was no indication of a Russian threat to directly manipulate the actual vote count."

Trump's victory

After Trump's victory, the agencies reaffirmed that Russian cyber operations had not altered the election outcome. However, a Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) prepared in December 2016, which confirmed these findings, was abruptly canceled after the FBI intervened and the Obama administration issued new directives.

In its place, a new narrative claiming that Russia had interfered in the election was developed, backed by leaks to media outlets such as the Washington Post, which published assertions from anonymous sources about Vladimir Putin's alleged involvement.

The "Steele Dossier"

Central to this narrative was the "Steele Dossier," a controversial document containing unverified allegations that, according to Gabbard, was used despite being deemed not credible by the intelligence community.

One ODNI whistleblower, who questioned the creation of an Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) that contradicted previous findings, was marginalized and excluded from discussions.

It was not until 2019 that this whistleblower discovered the use of the dossier in the 2017 ICA, which asserted that Russia had a "decisive preference" for Trump, a conclusion the whistleblower found unsupportable.

Gabbard has called these actions a "traitorous conspiracy" that sought to delegitimize Trump's victory and justify investigations such as that of special prosecutor Robert Mueller.

In a message on X, Gabbard claimed the documents show how “politicized intelligence that was used as the basis for countless smears seeking to delegitimize President Trump’s victory,” by top Obama officials, including Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan and former National Security Adviser Susan Rice.

Along those lines, Gabbard noted, “Americans will finally learn the truth about how in 2016, intelligence was politicized and weaponized by the most powerful people in the Obama Administration to lay the groundwork for what was essentially a years-long coup against President @realDonaldTrump, subverting the will of the American people and undermining our democratic republic. Here’s how.”