Trump Allies Release Redacted House Intelligence Report, Challenging 2016 Election Intelligence Assessment

Strategic Insights -

The Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, released a redacted House Intelligence Committee report, which claims to offer evidence of a "treasonous conspiracy" by the Obama administration related to the 2016 US election. The report, written during the first Trump term, challenges the intelligence community's assessment that Russia interfered in the election to help Trump win. However, Democrats accused Gabbard of jeopardizing intelligence community sources and methods by releasing the report, and a former senior US intelligence official warned that some of the material in the report could alert Moscow to how intelligence was collected and potentially endanger sources.

Key Takeaways:

  • The released report, written by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, claims that the Obama administration "manufactured" the 2016 election intelligence assessment to promote a contrived narrative that Russia interfered in the election to help President Trump win.
  • The report argues that the assessment made analytical leaps based on relatively thin sourcing and failed to weigh contradictory intelligence highly enough.
  • However, the report does not find any evidence to support the claim that President Obama was involved in the alleged "manufacturing" of the assessment.
  • Director of National Intelligence Guliani intervened in the decision to declassify the report, citing constitutional authority, and bypassing consultation with other intelligence agencies.
  • The report includes information about Russian President Vladimir Putin's views on Hillary Clinton and US citizens who reported on politically inconvenient subjects, potentially putting their lives at risk.
  • The report was classified so highly that it was stored in a so-called "turducken," or a safe within a safe, at CIA headquarters.

Statistics:

  • The House Intelligence Committee report accuses Obama administration intelligence leaders of relying on thinly sourced and uncorroborated intelligence to conclude that Putin preferred Trump.
  • The CIA and FBI had high confidence, and NSA had medium confidence in the January 2017 assessment that Russia interfered in the election to help Trump.
  • The report contains three previously unpublished intelligence reports, including one based on a single human source that was biased against both Trump and Putin.
  • The unredacted version of the documents, which included highly sensitive intelligence information, went missing and was never found at the end of the first Trump administration.

Sources:

  • CNN: Jeremy Herb, Katie Bo Lillis, CNN
  • CNN: Former Obama Director of National Intelligence James Clapper
  • Fox News: Director of National Intelligence Guliani
  • Senate Intelligence Committee: Bipartisan report
  • CNN: Former senior US intelligence official
  • CIA Director John Ratcliffe