Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard dropped documents on Friday showing former President Barack Obama’s administration crafting the Russian collusion narrative well before the 2016 presidential election.
Gabbard’s memo highlighted the key information within the 114-page report, starting on August 31, 2016: “A DHS official tells former DNI James Clapper that there was ‘no indication of a Russian threat to directly manipulate the actual vote count.’”
On September 2, an email from someone suggested edits that would plant the seed that Russia planned to hijack the 2016 election, since, well, as we know, the intelligence community had no evidence it would happen.
On page 5, under the “(U//[blacked out]) Adversaries with Intent” section, we would prefer for the first sentence regarding Russia’s intent to be softened. The way it currently reads, it would indicate that we have definitive information that Russia does intend to disrupt our elections and we are uncomfortable making that assessment at this point. We would suggest editing the sentence to read as the following (changes highlighted): “([blacked out]) We judge Russia to be the only nation state with the current means and possible motivation to use cyber attack to disrupt the 2016 election or deny political legitimacy to US presidential candidates.” We would also suggest editing the title of that section to instead read something along the lines of “(U//[blacked out]) Evaluation of Likely Adversaries” so that it doesn’t mislead the reader to believe that the IC currently has information indicating Russia has a known intent to influence the elections.
But then the IC went the original route in its September 12 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) report: “We judge that foreign adversaries do not have and will probably not obtain the capabilities to successfully execute widespread and undetected cyber attacks on the diverse set of information technologies and infrastructures used to support the November 2016 US presidential election.”
Did ODNI and DHS listen? Of course not!
Instead, they both told everyone they had “confidence” that Russia was responsible for the hacks on the DNC and DCCC.
Then Trump beat Hillary.
The intelligence community discussed drafting the Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB), which would tell Obama that “Russian and criminal actors did not impact recent US election results by conducting malicious cyber activities against election infrastructure.”
The authors at first gave themselves a decent timeline to publish it but due to the media frenzy chose to publish it the next day for Obama.
The authors drafted a PDB but received information that the FBI, helmed by James Comey, would not longer coordinate with them and would draft a dissent.
The PDB that stated Russia had no hand in Trump’s victory? Yeah, never published.
Catherine Herridge has a great summary:
Newly declassified records from @DNIGabbard are additional, compelling evidence that the 2016 Russia Collusion narrative was not rooted in credible intelligence reporting, but manufactured to fit a preferred political narrative.Gabbard has taken the rare and transparent step of declassifying a December 2016 draft of the President’s Daily Brief or PDB.This highly classified record, which is a daily national security analysis for the President, assessed that “Russian and criminal actors did not impact recent US election results by conducting malicious cyber activities against (election) infrastructure.”But after push back from the FBI, then led by James Comey, the PDB was spiked “based on new guidance.”After a White House Principals meeting, a new intelligence assessment was commissioned, and media leaks followed, reinforcing a new narrative that “Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system.”TIMELINEDecember 8, 2016Draft PDB – Russia “did not impact US election results”Hours later, FBI withdraws supportPDB is killed “based on new guidance”December 9, 2016 Obama White House Gathers Top Cabinet Officials including Clapper, Brennan, Susan Rice, Andrew McCabe and others.New Intelligence Assessment is commissionedJanuary 6, 2017 New Intel Assessment : Russia interfered to help Trump
“Their goal was to subvert the will of the American people and enact what was essentially a years-long coup with the objective of trying to usurp the President from fulfilling the mandate bestowed upon him by the American people,” Gabbard said. “Their egregious abuse of power and blatant rejection of our Constitution threatens the very foundation and integrity of our democratic republic.”“No matter how powerful, every person involved in this conspiracy must be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, to ensure nothing like this ever happens again,” Gabbard continued. “The American people’s faith and trust in our democratic republic and therefore the future of our nation depends on it. As such, I am providing all documents to the Department of Justice to deliver the accountability that President Trump, his family, and the American people deserve.”
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