Russian President Vladimir Putin had damaging information about Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election, but kept a lid on it so he could use it against her in the likely event that she would win the White House over Donald Trump, the Republican nominee.
The revelation is part of a newly declassified House Intelligence Committee report, written in September 2020, that found significant flaws in the 2016 Intelligence Community Assessment that Mr. Putin “developed a clear preference” for Mr. Trump, and that Mr. Putin and the Russian government “aspired to help” President Trump win by discrediting Mrs. Clinton.
The intelligence community assessment, issued in the final weeks of the Obama presidency, downplayed intelligence that Mr. Putin may have favored a Mrs. Clinton win and instead tied Mr. Trump to Mr. Putin.
It set off a yearslong investigation into the Trump campaign, fomented distrust over the 2016 election results and Mr. Trump’s victory, and inarguably hobbled his first administration.
But it was Mrs. Clinton, not Mr. Trump, whom Mr. Putin may have been counting on to win the White House, the House report found, and the earlier intelligence community assessment “ignored strong indicators” supporting that hypothesis.
Moscow operatives, the report’s analysis of the intelligence assessment found, appeared to be “laying low” with damning “reserve materials” on Mrs. Clinton that they planned to “shoot” after the election, when the Clinton administration was expected to be setting up.
Russia may have considered her to be the preferred candidate, based on Russian Foreign Intelligence Service reporting on her psychological health, the report found.
“By keeping the most damaging material on Clinton in reserve, Putin was not only demonstrating a clear lack of concern for Trump’s election fate, but conversely, his actions could also indicate that he preferred to see Secretary Clinton elected, knowing she would be a more vulnerable President than a candidate Trump,” the House report stated.
Mr. Trump is now overseeing a broad declassification of reports, communications and other materials related to what Mr. Trump and many in the MAGA world call the “Russia hoax,” led by Democrats, that attempted to tie his 2016 victory to a now-debunked alliance with Mr. Putin.
The report released Wednesday found that the Obama-era intelligence community assessment was in part based on flawed information and on an unverified conclusion that mr. Putin “aspired” to help Mr. Trump win the election.
The conclusion relied specifically on “one scant, an unverifiable fragment of a sentence” from a single source that was published in a report during the final weeks of Obama’s presidency. It stated Mr. Putin was “counting on” Mr. Trump’s win.
A senior CIA operations officer told House investigators at the time that the sentence was interpreted “five ways” by five different people, and nobody knew what it really meant.
“The ICA did not cite any report where Putin directly indicated helping Trump win was the objective,” the report found. “That judgement rested on a questionable interpretation of this one, unclear fragment of a sentence.”
The declassified report, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said, “exposes how the Obama Administration manufactured the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment that they knew was false, promoting the LIE that Vladimir Putin and the Russian government helped President Trump win the 2016 election.”
Ms. Gabbard accused Mr. Obama of “treason,” for his role in promoting the Trump-Russia collusion hoax. Mr. Trump said on Monday that Mr. Obama is “guilty” of treason, an allegation that Mr. Obama’s spokesman called “ridiculous.”
In a statement, Mr. Obama called Ms. Gabbard’s comments “nonsense and misinformation,” and said evidence showed “Russia worked to influence the 2016 election.”
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.