New Evidence Uncovers Obama-Directed Creation of False Intelligence Report Used to Launch Years-long Coup to Undermine President Trump and the American People

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
ODNI News Release No. 18-25
July 23, 2025

New Evidence Uncovers Obama-Directed Creation of False Intelligence Report Used to Launch Years-long Coup to Undermine President Trump and the American People

WASHINGTON, D.C. – On Wednesday, at the President’s direction and with support of the HPSCI Chairman Rick Crawford, Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard released a declassified oversight majority staff report produced by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) in September 2020 that details how the Obama Administration manufactured an Intelligence Community Assessment they knew was false.

The ODNI records released on Friday, Senator Chuck Grassley’s release on Monday of the appendix to the DOJ OIG’s June 2018 report known as the “Clinton annex,” and the HPSCI oversight report released today confirm a treasonous conspiracy led by President Obama and his national security team, including James Clapper, John Brennan, and James Comey, to manipulate and manufacture intelligence that promoted a contrived false narrative falsely claiming: “Putin aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances, when possible, by discrediting Secretary Clinton.”

President Obama directed the creation of this January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment after President Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, and it served as the basis for what was essentially a years-long coup against the duly elected President of the United States, subverting the will of the American people and attempting to delegitimize Donald Trump’s presidency.

“The stunning revelations these intelligence documents expose should concern every American. There is irrefutable evidence detailing how President Obama and his national security team directed the creation of an Intelligence Community Assessment that they knew was false, promoting the contrived narrative that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help President Trump win, as though it were true. The documents we released shows how they did it: manufacturing findings from shoddy sources, suppressing evidence that disproved their false claims, disobeying IC tradecraft standards, and withholding the truth from the American people,” said DNI Gabbard. “In doing so, they conspired to subvert the will of the American people and worked with their partners in the media to promote this lie to undermine the legitimacy of President Trump. This kicked off what would essentially be a yearslong coup against President Trump which included federal investigations, two impeachments, FBI raids on his home, arrests of senior officials, smears and harassment of President Trump and his family, and more. The American people deserve the truth, accountability and justice. The integrity, and therefore the future of our democratic republic demands it.”

Below are key findings from the HPSCI oversight report:

Putin’s principal interests relating to the 2016 election were to undermine faith in the US democratic process, not showing any preference of a certain candidate.
Putin chose not to leak the most damaging and compromising material on Hillary Clinton prior to the election; instead planning to release it after the election to weaken what Moscow viewed would be an inevitable Clinton presidency. If Russia wanted to help Donald Trump get elected, they would have released this material prior to the election to harm the Clinton campaign.
The material about Hilliary Clinton that Putin chose not to release before the election, included possible criminal acts, including:
- “Details of secret meetings with multiple named US religious organizations, in which State Department representatives offered – in exchange for supporting Secretary Clinton – “significant increases in financing” from Department funds and “the patronage” of State in dealing with ‘post-Soviet countries.”
- DNC emails detailing that Hillary Clinton suffered from “psycho-emotional problems,” “uncontrolled fits of anger, aggression, and cheerfulness.” Clinton was allegedly on a daily regimen of “heavy tranquilizers,” and while she was afraid of losing, she remained “obsessed with a thirst for power.”
CIA Director Brennan and the IC mischaracterized intelligence and relied on dubious, “substandard” sources to create a contrived false narrative that Putin developed “a clear preference” for Trump.
CIA Director Brennan and the IC misled lawmakers by referencing the debunked Steele Dossier to assess “Russian plans and intentions,” which falsely suggested the dossier had intelligence value.
The IC excluded “significant intelligence” and “ignored or selectively quoted” reliable intelligence that contradicted the ICA’s key findings on Putin’s alleged support for Trump, that if included, would have exposed the ICA’s claim was “implausible—if not ridiculous.”
The ICA omitted reliably sourced information, such as how some Russian intelligence officials were “planning for candidate Clinton’s victory” while others assessed “neither Trump nor Clinton” would respect Russian interests.

As reflected in ODNI documents released on July 18, multiple IC assessments released in the months leading up to the November 2016 elections assessed that Russia had neither the intent nor capability to impact the outcome of the US election.

On December 5, 2016, the FBI and ODNI gave HPSCI its first post-election classified briefing, in which there was “no mention of Putin ‘aspiring’ to elect Trump” by either agency.
The President’s Daily Brief (PDB) drafted on December 8, 2016 stated that no Russian or criminal actors impacted vote counts. This document was pulled hours before it was to be published due to “new guidance.” If it had been published, it would have been briefed to both President Obama and President-elect Donald Trump.
On December 9, 2016, a National Security Council meeting was called with President Obama’s senior national security officials, which included CIA Director John Brennan, DNI James Clapper, Susan Rice, Andrew McCabe and others.
After the December 9, 2016 secret meeting of Obama national security officials, DNI Clapper’s assistant sent an email to leaders in the IC with the subject line “POTUS tasking on Russia Election Meddling,” and tasking to create a new “assessment per the President’s request.”
The HPSCI oversight report reveals that, “unlike routine IC analysis, the ICA was a high-profile product ordered by the President, directed by senior IC agency heads, and created by just five analysts, using one principal drafter. Production of the ICA was subject to unusual directives from the President and senior political appointees, and particularly DCIA.”
Later that same day, Brennan ordered the inclusion of “substandard reporting” on Russian activities, which had previously been withheld from publication because the information was judged “to have not met longstanding publication standards.” Some of the information was, later used in the ICA, over the objections of veteran CIA officers, because it was “unclear, or from unknown subsources.”
CIA Director Brennan overruled senior CIA officers who challenged the ICA’s claims, stating “we don’t have direct information that Putin wanted to get Trump elected.
Yet, the Obama-directed ICA published on January 6, 2017 explicitly stated: “We assess Putin and the Russian government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him.” The CIA and FBI expressed high confidence in this judgment, while the NSA held moderate confidence.
However, the HPSCI report reveals “the ICA did not cite any report where Putin directly indicated helping Trump win was the objective.”

Steele Dossier
We now know one of the source documents the Obama Administration officials used in the creation of the January 2017 ICA was the discredited, unverified Steele Dossier.

HPSCI report states: “Contradicting public claims by the DCIA [Brennan] that the dossier ‘was not in any way’ incorporated into the ICA, the dossier was referenced in the ICA main body text and further detailed in a two-page ICA annex.”

John Brennan lied and denied using the dossier in the ICA because he knew it was a discredited, politically motivated manufactured document. He told senior CIA officials to use it anyway.

CIA officer to HPSCI staff: “DCIA [Brennan] refused to remove it, and when confronted with the dossier’s main flaws, [Brennan] responded, ‘Yes, but doesn’t it ring true?’”

The bipartisan Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) report (Volume 5, 2020) also criticized the FBI’s handling of the Steele Dossier, noting its completely unverified nature and purposeful sidestepping of IC procedure in its use.

“High Confidence”
President Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey and others, along with their mouthpieces in the media, knowingly lied as they repeated the contrived false narrative they created in the January 2017 ICA with “high confidence” as though it were fact.

Obama’s CIA Director, Brennan stated in a memo to agency staff in December 2016, “There is strong consensus among us on the scope, nature, and intent of Russian interference in our presidential election.”
Obama’s Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper was tasked with overseeing the creation of the January 2017 ICA and expressed confidence in its findings. In a 2018 interview with the Harvard Gazette, he said, “We provided Trump the same classified assessment that President Obama received,” which included the high-confidence judgment that “Putin directly ordered the hacking and election interference.” Clapper further noted, “I think they [Russians] actually influenced the outcome,” indicating his personal belief in the ICA’s conclusions.

The HPSCI report was updated several times as the Committee received new information, with the most recent version dated September 2020.

The report from today’s release is available on DNI.gov. DNI Gabbard will post updates on X (@DNIGabbard) and Truth Social (@DNlTulsiGabbard).

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