Documents released by the director of national intelligence shows actions by Obama-era officials in the fallout of the 2016 election.
Former President Barack Obama is maintaining that Russia attempted to interfere with the 2016 presidential election, after intelligence officials declassified documents that shed light on actions by top administration officials at the time.
“Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes,” a spokesperson for Obama told news outlets on July 22.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard last week released declassified documents that she said showed “President Obama and his national security cabinet members manufactured and politicized intelligence to lay the groundwork for what was essentially a years-long coup against President Trump.”
Obama’s spokesperson also pointed to a 2020 Senate Intelligence Committee report, saying the committee affirmed that Russia worked to influence the election.
The Senate report referenced by Obama said that Russia “engaged in an aggressive, multi-faceted effort to influence, or attempt to influence, the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.”
In response to the statement, Gabbard accused the former president of practicing “the art of deflection.”
The statement “does not actually address the issue that was revealed in great detail in the over 100 documents that we released last week, and the documents that we will be releasing later this week,” Gabbard said in a Fox News interview on Tuesday.
President Donald Trump, when asked about Gabbard’s criminal referrals to the Department of Justice based on information in the declassified documents, said at the White House on Tuesday that Obama is guilty of treason.
“It’s Obama. His orders are on the paper. The papers are signed. The papers came right out of their office,” Trump said, referring to the finding by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that Obama had requested a new intelligence assessment into Russia’s alleged interference in the election after intelligence agencies had previously found Russia did not use cyberattacks to target the election.
Trump said that “they tried to rig the election, and they got caught, and there should be very severe consequences for that.”
