A new report reveals that the “Russian collusion” hoax was orchestrated by then-President Barack Obama and a cabal of intelligence agency officials. Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard released a treasure trove of documents late last week, detailing how Obama and his intelligence agency officials — chiefly then-DNI James Clapper, then-Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director James Comey, and then-Central Intelligence Agency Director James Brennan — conspired to manipulate and fabricate intelligence, leak that manipulated and fabricated intelligence to the press, and engineer the “Russian collusion” hoax that plagued President Donald Trump’s first term.

Prior to the 2016 presidential election, the intelligence community (IC) investigated whether or not there was a serious threat that Russia might interfere in the election, concluding that “there is no indication of a Russian threat to directly manipulate the actual vote count through cyber means.” Even the FBI, under Comey’s direction, said that there was no “definitive information that Russia does intend to disrupt our elections, and we are uncomfortable making that assessment at this point.” IC officials agreed, positing that Russia “probably is not trying … to influence the election by using cyber means to manipulate computer-enabled election infrastructure.” Instead, intelligence experts suspected that any potential Russian interference would take the form of “stealing campaign party data and leaking select items” or “using public propaganda. This fits an historical pattern of Russia using less sophisticated propaganda and information operations to influence US elections.” Other IC officials said that “Russia probably is not (and will not) trying [sic] to influence the election…”

An Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) in September of 2016 concluded that “foreign adversaries do not have and will probably not obtain the capabilities to successfully execute widespread and undetected cyber attacks” on election infrastructure, and the president was informed that foreign enemies lacked the means to “covertly overturn the vote outcome.”

Even in the immediate aftermath of the election, which yielded a Trump victory, Clapper’s office concluded, “Foreign adversaries did not use cyberattacks on election infrastructure to alter the US Presidential election outcome,” adding, “We have no evidence of cyber manipulation of election infrastructure intended to alter results.” IC officials reached the same conclusion, asserting that “Russian and criminal actors did not impact recent US election results by conducting malicious cyber activities against election infrastructure.”

The report to the president containing this intelligence, however, was never published. Instead, Comey abruptly withdrew his support for the assessment and shared that the FBI would be authoring a dissent, alleging that Russia did significantly meddle in the 2016 election. Shortly afterward, an official in the DNI’s office buried the report “based on some new guidance.”

The day after the report was killed, in early December, Obama summoned Clapper and Brennan to a White House meeting, along with then-Secretary of State John Kerry, then-National Security Advisor Susan Rice, then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and a handful of other national security officials. In an email following the meeting, the DNI’s office announced the creation of a new “assessment per the President’s request,” which emails show would contradict months’ worth of prior intelligence concluding that Russia had neither the means nor the intention to alter the outcome of the election. Instead, the new assessment, requested by Obama, would claim that Russia was involved in widespread hacking and “cyber activity against voting systems,” in addition to other operations meant to impact the election outcome.

IC officials quickly began leaking information to mainstream media outlets, beginning with The Washington Post, alleging that Russia used “cyber means” to influence “the outcome of the election,” despite the IC’s conclusions to the contrary up until the day before. In one instance, IC officials told The Post that the CIA “concluded in a

secret assessment that Russia intervened” in the election in order to ensure a Trump victory. Throughout the rest of the month, IC officials leaked manipulated and falsified information to the press, claiming that intelligence agencies had “high confidence” that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a “U.S. election hack” to benefit the Trump campaign.

In early January, the Obama administration then published the new ICA, citing “further information” that had “come to light” to claim that Putin rigged the 2016 election to ensure Trump defeated his Democratic opponent, Obama’s former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. That “further information,” Gabbard’s report confirmed, was the notorious Steele dossier. The Steele dossier was compiled by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, whose work on the dossier was funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Citing only anonymous sources, the Steele dossier infamously claimed that Trump engaged in vulgar sex acts with Russian prostitutes and was now being blackmailed by the Russian government. The Steele dossier has subsequently been discredited.

Gabbard said of her report’s contents, “These documents detail a treasonous conspiracy by officials at the highest levels of the Obama White House to subvert the will of the American people and try to usurp the President from fulfilling his mandate.” She called the “Russian collusion” hoax “a gross weaponization of intelligence that laid the groundwork for a years-long coup intended to subvert President Trump’s entire presidency.” Gabbard reported that she had delivered all relevant documents to the Justice Department for possible prosecutions, commenting, “This betrayal concerns every American. The integrity of our democratic republic demands that every person involved be investigated and brought to justice to prevent this from ever happening again.”

In a Truth Social post, Trump suggested the possibility of “prosecuting Obama and the ‘thugs’ who have just been unequivocally exposed on highest level Election Fraud.” Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff and top policy advisor Stephen Miller said that Gabbard’s report “has exposed the startling depths of a seditious coup against the Republic. The forces behind this coup have done and will do anything to protect their grasp on illegal & illegitimate power. Do not underestimate their capabilities or depravities.”

In comments to The Washington Stand, Oversight Project President Mike Howell said, “The Constitution depends on moral men of character leading our government. That was not the case during the Obama administration, particularly in light of recent disclosures.” He anticipated that “there will be frustration in the attempts to prosecute this case criminally” but added, “Constitutionally, Republicans should reclaim their oversight authorities and actually follow through on the accountability aspects by substantially reforming and limiting the ability of future bad actors to be able to abuse their positions.” Howell clarified, “That means significant limitations on the intelligence community who has proven time and time again that it cannot be trusted and, in many cases, does way more harm than good.”