The intelligence community did not have any direct information that Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to help elect Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election, but, at the ‘unusual’ direction of then-President Barack Obama, published ‘potentially biased’ or ‘implausible’ intelligence suggesting otherwise, the House Intelligence Committee found.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard declassified a report prepared by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence back in 2020.
The report, which was based on an investigation launched by former House Intelligence Community Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., was dated Sept. 18, 2020. At the time of the publication of the report, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., was the chairman of the committee.
The report has never before been released to the public, and instead, has remained highly classified within the intelligence community.
Fox News Digital obtained the unredacted and fully-sourced limited-access investigation report that was drafted and stored in a limited-access vault at CIA Headquarters.
The committee focused on the creation of the Intelligence Community Assessment of 2017, in which then-CIA Director John Brennan pushed for the inclusion of the now-discredited anti-Trump dossier, despite knowing it was based largely on ‘internet rumor,’ as Fox News Digital previously reported.
According to the report, the ICA was 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.’
‘Production of the ICA was subject to unusual directives from the President and senior political appointees, and particularly DCIA,’ the report states. ‘The draft was not properly coordinated within CIA or the IC, ensuring it would be published without significant challenges to its conclusions.’
The committee found that the five CIA analysts and drafter ‘rushed’ the ICA’s production ‘in order to publish two weeks before President-elect Trump was sworn-in.’
‘Hurried coordination and limited access to the draft reduced opportunities for the IC to discover misquoting of sources and other tradecraft concerns,’ the report states.
The report states that Brennan ‘ordered the post-election publication of 15 reports containing previously collected but unpublished intelligence, three of which were substandard—containing information that was unclear, of uncertain origin, potentially biased, or implausible—and those became foundational sources for the ICA judgements that Putin preferred Trump over Clinton.’
‘The ICA misrepresented these reports as reliable, without mentioning their significant underlying flaws,’ the committee found.
‘One scant, unclear, and unverifiable fragment of a sentence from one of the substandard reports constitutes the only classified information cited to suggest Putin ‘aspired’ to help Trump win,’ the report states, adding that the ICA ‘ignored or selectively quoted reliable intelligence reports that challenged-and in some cases undermined—judgments that Putin sought to elect Trump.’
The report also states that the ICA ‘failed to consider plausible alternative explanations of Putin’s intentions indicated by reliable intelligence and observed Russian actions.’
The committee also found that two senior CIA officers warned Brennan that ‘we don’t have direct information that Putin wanted to get Trump elected.’
Despite those warnings, the Obama administration moved to publish the ICA.
The ICA ‘did not cite any report where Putin directly indicated helping Trump win was the objective.’
The ICA, according to the report, excluded ‘significant intelligence’ and ‘ignored or selectively quoted’ reliable intelligence in an effort to push the Russia narrative.
The report also includes intelligence from a longtime Putin confidant who explained to investigators that ‘Putin told him he did not care who won the election,’ and that Putin ‘had often outlined the weaknesses of both major candidates.’
The report also states that the ICA committed context showing that the claim that Putin preferred Trump was ‘implausible—if not ridiculous.’
The committee also found that the ICA suppressed intelligence that showed that Russia was actually planning for a Hillary Clinton victory because ‘they knew where [she] stood’ and believed Russia ‘could work with her.’
The committee also noted that the ICA ‘did not address why Putin chose not to leak more discrediting material on Clinton,’ even as polls tightened in the final weeks of the election.’
The committee also found that the ICA suppressed intelligence showing that Putin was ‘not only demonstrating a clear lack of concern for Trump’s election fate,’ but also indicated ‘that he preferred to see Secretary Clinton elected, knowing she would be a more vulnerable President.’
The declassification of the report comes just days after Gabbard declassified and released documents that included ‘overwhelming evidence’ that demonstrated how, after President Donald Trump won the 2016 election against Hillary Clinton, then-President Barack Obama and his national security team laid the groundwork for what would be the yearslong Trump–Russia collusion probe.
Meanwhile, Fox News Digital, in 2020, exclusively obtained the declassified transcripts from Obama-era national security officials’ closed-door testimonies before the House Intelligence Committee, in which those officials testified that they had no ’empirical evidence’ of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia in the 2016 election, but continued to publicly push the ‘narrative’ of collusion.
The House Intelligence Committee, in 2017, conducted depositions of top Obama intelligence officials, including Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, National Security Advisor Susan Rice and Attorney General Loretta Lynch, among others.
The officials’ responses in the transcripts of those interviews align with the results of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation – which found no evidence of criminal coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia in 2016, while not reaching a determination on obstruction of justice.
The transcripts, from 2017 and 2018, revealed top Obama officials were questioned by House Intelligence Committee lawmakers and investigators about whether they had or had seen evidence of such collusion, coordination or conspiracy – the issue that drove the FBI’s initial case and later the special counsel probe.
‘I never saw any direct empirical evidence that the Trump campaign or someone in it was plotting/conspiring with the Russians to meddle with the election,’ Clapper testified in 2017. ‘That’s not to say that there weren’t concerns about the evidence we were seeing, anecdotal evidence…. But I do not recall any instance where I had direct evidence.’
Lynch also said she did ‘not recall that being briefed up to me.’
‘I can’t say that it existed or not,’ Lynch said, referring to evidence of collusion, conspiracy or coordination.
But Clapper and Lynch, and Vice President Joe Biden, were present in the Oval Office on July 28, 2016, when Brennan briefed Obama and Comey on intelligence he’d received from one of Hillary Clinton’s campaign foreign policy advisors ‘to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service.’
‘We’re getting additional insight into Russian activities from (REDACTED),’ Brennan’s handwritten notes, exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital in October 2020, read. ‘CITE (summarizing) alleged approved by Hillary Clinton a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service.’
Meanwhile, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, according to the transcript of her interview to the House Intelligence Committee, was asked whether she had or saw any evidence of collusion or conspiracy.
Power replied: ‘I am not in possession of anything – I am not in possession and didn’t read or absorb information that came from out of the intelligence community.’
When asked again, she said: ‘I am not.’
Rice was asked the same question.
‘To the best of my recollection, there wasn’t anything smoking, but there were some things that gave me pause,’ she said, according to her transcribed interview, in response to whether she had any evidence of conspiracy. ‘I don’t recall intelligence that I would consider evidence to that effect that I saw… conspiracy prior to my departure.’
When asked whether she had any evidence of ‘coordination,’ Rice replied: ‘I don’t recall any intelligence or evidence to that effect.’
When asked about collusion, Rice replied: ‘Same answer.’
Former Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes was asked the same question during his House Intelligence interview.
‘I wouldn’t have received any information on any criminal or counterintelligence investigations into what the Trump campaign was doing, so I would not have seen that information,’ Rhodes said.
When pressed again, he said: ‘I saw indications of potential coordination, but I did not see, you know, the specific evidence of the actions of the Trump campaign.’
Meanwhile, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was not asked that specific question but rather questions about the accuracy and legitimacy of the unverified anti-Trump dossier compiled by ex-British intelligence officer Christopher Steele.
McCabe was asked during his interview in 2017 what was the most ‘damning or important piece of evidence in the dossier that’ he ‘now knows is true.’
McCabe replied: ‘We have not been able to prove the accuracy of all the information.’
‘You don’t know if it’s true or not?’ a House investigator asked, to which McCabe replied: ‘That’s correct.’
After Trump’s 2016 victory and during the presidential transition period, Comey briefed Trump on the now-infamous anti-Trump dossier, containing salacious allegations of purported coordination between Trump and the Russian government. Brennan was present for that briefing, which took place at Trump Tower in New York City in January 2017.
The dossier was authored by Steele. It was funded by Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee through the law firm Perkins Coie.
But Brennan and Comey knew of intelligence suggesting Clinton, during the campaign, was stirring up a plan to tie Trump to Russia, documents claim. It is unclear whether the intelligence community, at the time, knew that the dossier was paid for by Clinton and the DNC.
Brennan and Comey are now under FBI criminal investigation related to their activities connected to the Russia probe, after a criminal referral was sent by CIA Director John Ratcliffe to FBI Director Kash Patel.
Gabbard also sent the DOJ criminal referrals for those involved in the effort to create ‘manufactured’ and ‘politicized’ intelligence that led to the spreading of the Trump-Russia collusion narrative.
The Obama-era officials have been mum on the new revelations, but a spokesman for Obama on Tuesday made a rare public statement.
‘Out of respect for the office of the presidency, our office does not normally dignify the constant nonsense and misinformation flowing out of this White House with a response,’ Obama spokesman Patrick Rodenbush said in a statement. ‘But these claims are outrageous enough to merit one.’
‘These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction,’ Obama’s spokesman continued. ‘Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes.’
He added: ‘These findings were affirmed in a 2020 report by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, led by then-Chairman Marco Rubio.’
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