The Obama administration cooked up “manufactured intelligence” to suggest President Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory was the result of Russian interference, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told “Sunday Morning Futures” host Maria Bartiromo.
Gabbard released documents and a memo Friday detailing a “years-long coup” against Trump after he defeated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016. Gabbard told Bartiromo the actions of the Obama administration after the 2016 election were “nothing short of historic.”
“The implications of this are, frankly, nothing short of historic,” Gabbard told Bartiromo. “Over a hundred documents that we released on Friday really detail and provide evidence of how this treasonous conspiracy was directed by President Obama just weeks before he was due to leave office after President Trump had already gotten elected. This is not a Democrat or Republican issue, this is an issue that is so serious it should concern every single American because it has to do with the integrity of our democratic republic.”
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“What we saw occur here, as the documents we released detailed, was that we had a sitting president of the United States and his cabinet and leadership team, quite frankly who were not happy with the fact that President Trump had won the election, that the American people had chosen Donald J. Trump to be the next president, commander in chief of the United States, and so they decided that they would do everything possible to try to undermine his ability to do what voters tasked President Trump to do,” Gabbard continued. “So, creating this piece of manufactured intelligence that claims that Russia had helped Donald Trump get elected, contradicted every other assessment that had been made previously in the months leading up to the election that said exactly the opposite, that Russia neither had the intent nor the capability to, quote-unquote, hack the United States election for the presidency of the United States.”
Christopher Steele, an ex-British spy, authored a false dossier that was a key source behind the FBI’s investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign over allegations it had colluded with Russia to sway the election. The debunked dossier was also a centerpiece in Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant applications directed at former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
Special Counsel John Durham concluded in a May 2023 report that the FBI used “uncorroborated intelligence” to launch its probe into the Trump campaign, and was unable to verify the claims made in the Steele dossier. FBI analyst Brian Auten testified in an October 2022 trial that the FBI offered Christopher Steele $1 million if he could corroborate the claims in the dossier, but Steele never did.
“The effect of what president Obama and his senior national security team did was subvert the will of the American people, undermining our democratic republic and enacting what would be, essentially, a years-long coup against President Trump, who was duly elected by the American people,” Gabbard said.
Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee were fined by the Federal Election Commission in 2022 for their involvement in the since-discredited Steele dossier, CNN reported.
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