WASHINGTON — Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, released new documents Wednesday that she said undermined the conclusion of intelligence agencies during the Obama administration that Russia favored the election of Donald Trump in 2016.

Gabbard released a declassified version of a report from the House Intelligence Committee, originally drafted in 2017, when Republicans led the panel. The report took issue with the conclusion reached in December 2016 that President Vladimir Putin of Russia had favored Trump.

On Sunday, Gabbard promised to refer the details of her findings to the Justice Department. And Wednesday, she said in a social media post that Trump had ordered the declassification of the report and that the information showed the “most egregious weaponization and politicization of intelligence in American history.”

The Obama administration, Gabbard wrote, was “promoting the LIE that Vladimir Putin and the Russian government helped President Trump win the 2016 election.”

Gabbard has won praise from Trump for her investigation into the intelligence findings and spoke at length about how the 2016 assessment was part of a witch hunt against him. Trump has been under sharp criticism for his handling of documents related to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, and his attacks on the Obama administration appear to be part of a distract-and-deflect strategy.

Gabbard Reiterates Her Claims

Gabbard reiterated her assertion that the intelligence assessment was intended to undermine Trump’s presidency.

“In doing so, they conspired to subvert the will of the American people,” she wrote, “working with their partners in the media to promote the lie, in order to undermine the legitimacy of President Trump, essentially enacting a years-long coup against him.”

The House report found that most of the judgments made by the intelligence community in 2016 were sound. But it argued that the work was rushed, as a recent tradecraft analysis by the CIA also found. The assessment that Putin had favored Trump did not follow the “professional criteria” of the other findings, the House report said.

The findings were at odds with a bipartisan series of Senate reports that later affirmed the work of the CIA and the other intelligence agencies on the 2016 assessment.

The judgment about Putin’s preference, the report said, was based on a single source who was biased against the Russian government. The raw intelligence was fragmentary and lacked context, the report added.

The overall view of the House Intelligence Committee was well known, and members frequently took issue with the finding. But the full report with details of the CIA’s work on the 2016 intelligence assessment has not been released.

Trump administration officials have maintained that the 2016 intelligence review was tainted by unverified information in a dossier prepared by a former British intelligence officer, Christopher Steele. The so-called Steele dossier was mentioned in a classified annex to the report, but former officials said the CIA did not take it seriously and did not allow it to influence their assessment.

Few if any of the claims in the dossier about Trump have been verified in the ensuing years.

Attacking the conclusions of the 2016 assessment that Russia sought to denigrate Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee, and boost Trump has been a hobby horse of some of the president’s supporters. Republicans have long taken particular aim at the idea that the Kremlin favored Trump, arguing instead that Russia was simply trying to sow chaos or undermine democratic institutions.

The attacks on the documents have intensified in recent weeks as first the CIA and then Gabbard’s office have raised questions about the effort.

Bipartisan Senate Reviews Validate CIA’s Work in 2016

Bipartisan Senate reviews have validated the CIA’s work in 2016, and John H. Durham, a special prosecutor appointed by Attorney General William Barr during Trump’s first term, also failed to find any evidence undermining the intelligence agencies’ conclusions.

While Trump’s Republican supporters criticized the assessment during his first term, Trump focused much of his ire on Robert Mueller, the former FBI director appointed to investigate any ties between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.

Since Trump’s return to office, the CIA and Gabbard have tried to sow doubts about the assessment. Gabbard has contended that the intelligence work in 2016 was not just flawed but also amounted to a conspiracy against Trump.

On Friday, Gabbard issued a report that she said exposed a “treasonous conspiracy,” claiming senior Obama administration officials had pressured the intelligence committee to change its views on Russian meddling. The documents presented showed that the Obama administration was eager to quickly complete its work but not that the intelligence agencies altered their conclusions.

Trump has praised Gabbard, after criticizing her work just weeks earlier. Referring to Gabbard’s report, Trump said Tuesday that while in office, President Barack Obama “was trying to lead a coup.”

Gabbard has said she wants to end the weaponization of intelligence. She has condemned politicians for what she sees as the use of selective bits of intelligence against their opponents.

While she has portrayed the release of the documents as a corrective to the errors and missteps of the Obama administration, former officials and even some allies of Gabbard have said her effort to throw a lifeline to Trump is an example of the very politicization she has vowed to stamp out.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Julian E. Barnes/Eric Lee
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