A newly declassified report from the House Intelligence Committee reveals that the U.S. intelligence community had no direct evidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin aimed to help elect Donald Trump in the 2016 election. Instead, the report claims that intelligence agencies, acting under \u201cunusual\u201d directives from then-President Barack Obama, released information that was \u201cpotentially biased\u201d or \u201cimplausible,\u201d misleadingly suggesting Putin\u2019s preference for Trump.<\/p>\n
The 2020 report, originally prepared under then-House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, was declassified by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. At the time of the report\u2019s creation, Rep. Adam Schiff chaired the committee. The findings had been stored in a classified vault at CIA headquarters and remained secret until now. Fox News first broke the story, citing access to the full, though partially redacted, report.<\/p>\n
The committee\u2019s investigation focused on the development of the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA). It found that then-CIA Director John Brennan pushed for the inclusion of information from the now-discredited Steele dossier, despite knowing it was largely based on \u201cinternet rumor.\u201d The ICA was drafted by just five CIA analysts under pressure to publish it before President-elect Trump\u2019s inauguration.<\/p>\n
According to the report, Brennan also ordered the release of 15 intelligence reports after the election\u2014three of which were notably flawed. Despite their weakness, they were used to support the claim that Putin favored Trump. The ICA relied heavily on one \u201cscant, unverifiable\u201d sentence as its only classified support for the allegation.<\/p>\n
The report also noted that top CIA officers warned Brennan there was no direct evidence linking Putin to any preference for Trump. Additionally, intelligence from a longtime Putin associate indicated the Russian leader \u201cdid not care who won\u201d and had critiques of both candidates\u2014undermining the ICA\u2019s main conclusion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A newly declassified report from the House Intelligence Committee reveals that the U.S. intelligence community had no direct evidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin aimed to help… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9063,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n