WASHINGTON, DC — Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has openly questioned the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusions on Russian interference in the 2016 election—claims that CNN reports are sharply at odds with the findings of numerous Trump administration officials and bipartisan congressional investigations.

In a memo and in subsequent interviews on Fox News, Gabbard claimed that the CIA’s conclusion that Russia interfered to help Donald Trump win the 2016 election was based on what she called “a manufactured piece of intelligence.”

CNN noted that her assertion—that Russia did not interfere, that Putin did not direct any effort, and that the intelligence community was engaged in deception—runs counter to years of official assessments, many led by Republicans.

Among those assessments is the 2020 Senate Intelligence Committee report spearheaded by Senator Marco Rubio, who was one of Trump’s staunchest allies. The report as noted by CNN, concluded that Russia had “engaged in an aggressive, multi-faceted effort to influence, or attempt to influence, the outcome of the 2016 presidential election” and that those efforts were aimed specifically at helping Trump.

Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman turned Trump appointee, now appears to reject not only that conclusion, but also the findings of the House Intelligence Committee in 2018. Though that Republican-led report stopped short of assigning motive, it did affirm that Russia had interfered and that the effort was ordered by President Vladimir Putin.

Her stance also diverges from key voices within the Trump administration itself. During his 2020 confirmation hearing to lead the intelligence community under Trump, John Ratcliffe stated, “Russia meddled in or interfered with active measures in 2016. They interfered in 2018. They will attempt to do so in 2020.”

Similarly, Trump’s former national security adviser and current U.N. ambassador nominee, Mike Waltz, warned against conflating “no collusion” with “no interference.” In 2019, Waltz said, “We do have to draw a bright line between ‘no collusion’ … versus the Russians attacking our constitutional system and attacking our electoral system, which they absolutely are doing.”

While Gabbard’s recent remarks have been embraced by some in the Trump-aligned media ecosystem, CNN points out they starkly contradict the record laid out by multiple Republican investigations and intelligence officials—including those who served in Trump’s first term.

@ India-West News Desk