WASHINGTON — The Obama administration knew before and after the 2016 election that Russia did not affect the vote’s outcome through cyberattacks, according to a bombshell document released by the Trump administration Friday.
Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard made public more than 100 pages of emails, memos and other records cataloguing what she called Obama officials’ “conspiracy to subvert President Trump’s 2016 victory.”
Both before and after Democrat Hillary Clinton’s loss, the US Intelligence Community assessed that Russia played no significant role influencing the election.
Among the documents was a Sept. 12, 2016, Intelligence Community Assessment that determined “foreign adversaries do not have and will probably not obtain the capabilities to successfully execute widespread and undetected cyber attacks” on election infrastructure.
On Dec. 7, 2016, then-DNI James Clapper’s office also concluded: “Foreign adversaries did not use cyberattacks on election infrastructure to alter the US Presidential election outcome” and “We have no evidence of cyber manipulation of election infrastructure intended to alter results.”
Other findings, prepared the following day for Obama’s Presidential Daily Brief, only pointed to the “likely” hacking of an Illinois voter registration database that did not affect the electoral count and was “unsuccessfully attempted” in other states.
“Criminal activity also failed to reach the scale and sophistication necessary to change election outcomes,” the draft of the brief stated.
But those findings were suppressed after the FBI — led by Director James Comey — said it was going to “dissent” from the draft’s conclusions “based on some new guidance.”
Clapper then spearheaded an alternative intelligence report claiming the Kremlin orchestrated hackings of Democratic National Committee emails, thousands of which were later posted online by Wikileaks, and intervened in the presidential contest in favor of Trump.
Several officials — including CIA Director John Brennan, Secretary of State John Kerry, and FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe — met at the White House on Dec. 9, 2016, where Obama began “tasking” each to look into “Russia Election Meddling.”
White House chief of staff Denis McDonogh, National Security Adviser Susan Rice, Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson also attended that meeting.
The 44th president ordered a new intelligence assessment from the CIA, FBI, NSA and DHS, with comprehensive information about Russia’s activities related to the US presidential race by early January — an assessment which ended up including the since-debunked dossier produced by former MI6 spy Christopher Steele.
An executive assistant for Clapper wrote in an email later the same day that the new intel assessment must describe the “tools Moscow used and actions it took to influence the 2016 election.”
Members of the intelligence community later began to leak to the media that officials had “a high level of confidence” that Russian President Vladimir Putin was personally involved in the “U.S. Election Hack” and Obama expressed public concerns about hacks affecting the vote counting process.
View this document on Scribd
The White House meeting attendees also “agreed to recommend sanctioning of certain members of the Russian military intelligence and foreign intelligence chains of command responsible for cyber operations as a response to cyber activity that attempted to influence or interfere with U.S. elections, if such activity meets the requirements,” a National Security Council document showed.
The final product was a Jan. 7, 2017, Intelligence Community Assessment that “directly contradicted the IC assessments that were made throughout the previous six months,” according to Gabbard.
Earlier this month, CIA Director John Ratcliffe released a bombshell review of the 2016 assessment that concluded Clapper, Brennan and Comey deliberately corrupted it for “potential political motive[s].”
The Trump Justice Department later launched an investigation into Brennan and Comey for potential criminal violations related to the crafting of that assessment more than eight years ago.
Gabbard said in a statement that she was forwarding the records to the Department of Justice “to deliver the accountability that President Trump, his family, and the American people deserve.”
“The issue I am raising is not a partisan issue. It is one that concerns every American. The information we are releasing today clearly shows there was a treasonous conspiracy in 2016 committed by officials at the highest level of our government,” she said.
“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.”
The DNI chief added: “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’s exposé draws heavily on astounding new details dredged up by a whistleblower from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence who informed Clapper there was “no indication of a Russian threat to directly manipulate the actual vote count through cyber means.”
That whistleblower was pressured by the National Intelligence Officer for Cyber to accept the later Obama intelligence assessment’s findings, which included that Moscow had a preference for Trump.
“You need to trust me on this,” the whistleblower’s superior told him, referencing reporting that the informant was “not allowed to see,” which presumably included the Steele dossier.
“As for the 2017 ICA’s judgement of a decisive Russian preference for then-candidate Donald Trump,” the whistleblower stated in one of their emails. “I could not concur in good conscience based on information available, and my professional analytic judgement.”
— Additional reporting by Kendall White
