On Friday, director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard released “overwhelming evidence” that former president Barack Obama and other top Cabinet and Intelligence Community (I.C.) members conspired to “subvert the will of the American people” after President Trump won the 2016 election. The newly declassified Russiagate documents show that Obama and other high-level officials allegedly did everything they could to “delegitimize President Trump’s victory” with false claims and “countless smears.”
According to Gabbard, the newly released documents further prove a conspiracy that would perpetrate a “years-long coup” against President Trump. She also stated that those involved reportedly hoped to destroy the mandate and legacy “bestowed upon him by the American people.” It may well be one of the biggest political crimes in U.S. history.
Gabbard’s release decisively obliterates the longstanding claim that Moscow swung the 2016 election for Donald Trump. It also marks the first time a senior Trump administration official has directly implicated former president Barack Obama as an active participant in the alleged conspiracy.
Gabbard’s disclosure follows two earlier Trump‑era document dumps: a May release detailing Nellie Ohr’s sworn testimony misrepresentations about Crossfire Hurricane, and an early July declassification of the December 2016 intelligence assessment on Russian interference in the 2016 contest.
The newest release includes a “Russia Hoax Memo & Timeline” and a 35-page evidentiary package entitled “Declassified Evidence of Obama Administration Conspiracy to Subvert President Trump’s 2016 Victory and Presidency.”
Together they make three things unmistakably clear:
- The Intelligence Community (I.C.) repeatedly concluded — before and after Election Day — that Russia lacked both the intent and capability to alter U.S. vote totals. A September 12, 2016 I.C. assessment found that “foreign adversaries do not have and will probably not obtain the capabilities to successfully execute widespread and undetected cyber‑attacks” on election infrastructure.
- Those conclusions were suppressed or overwritten at the direction of senior Obama officials and probably Obama himself after Trump won. Talking points drafted for DNI James Clapper on December 7, 2016 stated flatly, “Foreign adversaries did not use cyberattacks on election infrastructure to alter the U.S. Presidential election outcome,” yet the president’s daily brief containing those conclusions was killed hours later.
Below is an example of one of the emails provided, suggesting that the I.C. knew that Russia “was not and will not try to influence the election via cyber means.”
- A hastily ordered Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA), released January 6, 2017, relied in part on the since‑discredited Steele dossier and became the cornerstone of years‑long investigations and impeachment efforts — despite internal dissent warning it was “politicized intelligence.”
A Timeline of Manipulation and Deceit
Included in the timeline released by Gabbard on July 18 are the following findings:
Two years later, in September 2019, while assisting with a FOIA request on the Obama‑era ICA, the same ODNI whistleblower was asked to locate records tied to the Steele dossier because, the whistleblower was told, the dossier “played a role” in that assessment. The request stunned the whistleblower who had long been told that DNI Clapper considered the dossier unreliable, and no one on the National Intelligence Council had ever suggested that it was a credible document.
Gabbard’s press release show that Obama administration officials knowingly “manufactured” the Steele Dossier and allegedly misrepresented Russia’s role in influencing the election. She added that the newly released assessment exposes the fact that “this was politicized intelligence that was used as a basis for countless smears seeking to delegitimize President Trump’s victory.”
Because of the Russia Hoax, she notes that Trump suffered two ill conceived congressional impeachments, and tensions were heightened with Russia. Former national security adviser to President Trump Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn had to resign and then endured years of costly litigation and reputational harm. Many others connected with the Trump administration suffered mightily because of the conspiracy.
Notably, in both her press release and her July 18 X post, Gabbard alludes to her commitment to fully investigate, prosecute, and deliver accountability “to the fullest extent of the law” to the American people and to President Trump and his family.
Image: Tulsi Gabbard. Credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.