Senate Intelligence Committee members, including some Republicans, are standing by their panel’s findings on “extensive” Russian interference in the 2016 election despite new allegations from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard that the Obama administration “manufactured intelligence.”
The 2020 bipartisan report, released in several tranches over the course of a year under a GOP-controlled chamber, concluded that Kremlin-backed efforts to sway the United States election for then-candidate Donald Trump did not affect vote-tallying or involve the Trump campaign but still occurred.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), a longtime leadership adviser and member of the Intel panel, defended the Senate’s previous findings of foreign meddling. However, Sen. Cornyn sided with Gabbard in suggesting Obama officials should face repercussions for pushing the collusion narrative that Trump was involved in Russian interference. Gabbard has not directly rebutted the findings by the Senate or other government entities on interference but suggested they were based on fake Obama-era intelligence.
“Accountability measures need to be taken,” Cornyn told the Washington Examiner. “I think the Russians were definitely trying to interfere with the election. But that’s a far cry from saying there was any collusion with the Trump administration.”
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) desired more information from Gabbard and referred to the Intel panel’s yearslong inquiry as “a thorough, in-depth investigation.”
“I don’t know what she’s referring to,” Collins said of Gabbard. “I do know that the intelligence committee did a very thorough, in-depth investigation. But if she has evidence that we did not have access to, I certainly want to see that.”
Gabbard’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
In recent media appearances and public statements, Gabbard has claimed there was a “treasonous conspiracy in 2016 committed by officials at the highest level of our government” largely based on internal emails and documents she says undermine four prior government investigations on Russian interference, including by the Senate under a Republican majority.
Gabbard downplays the conclusions from that inquiry and others from former special counsel Robert Mueller, a 2019 Justice Department inspector general report, and a 2023 report from Trump-appointed special counsel John Durham.
Calling it the “Russia hoax,” Gabbard says that intelligence assessments that Russia was not trying to manipulate the actual ballot count on voting machines directly were suppressed. She claims President Barack Obama directed “manufactured intelligence” that Russia helped Trump get elected, contradicting assessments that Russia had neither the intent nor capability to “hack the United States election for the presidency of the United States.”
No U.S. government report had suggested Russia had changed voting machine results, whereas there have been detailed investigations into how Russia interfered in the election by hacking Democratic emails and seeking to sow discord with fake social media posts. The intelligence community’s assessments were in line with what the government reports stated: Russia sought to influence the election in Trump’s favor but did not manipulate any vote results with cyberattacks.
In 2018, 12 Russian intelligence officials were indicted for hacking the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, with the DOJ stating they sought to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. The Russian officials were never extradited.
Gabbard has even referred unnamed former Obama officials to the Justice Department for potential criminal prosecution over old intelligence assessments. Gabbard, whose findings have been endorsed by Trump, has said there’s enough evidence to prosecute Obama, prompting Trump to share an AI-generated video of him being arrested by FBI agents. Presidents’ official acts are shielded from prosecution.
“Their goal was to subvert the will of the American people and enact what was essentially a yearslong coup with the objective of trying to usurp the President from fulfilling the mandate bestowed upon him by the American people,” Gabbard stated.
The State Department, now led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, described Gabbard’s latest assessment as “well-informed.” However, the department declined to address its discrepancies with the Senate Intelligence Committee, which Rubio chaired when he was a senator and whose time on the panel overlapped with the bipartisan report.
“Given her role, Director Gabbard has access to all the relevant information necessary to make a well-informed assessment,” a senior State Department official told the Washington Examiner in a statement.
At the time of the Senate report, Rubio endorsed a GOP statement that said the report showed the “Russian government inappropriately meddled in our 2016 general election in many ways, but then-Candidate Trump was not complicit.”
The Senate report detailed Russia’s successful hacking operation into the DNC to steal and disseminate damning internal communications but also its unsuccessful cyberattacks into local ballot-counting systems. While Russian hackers were determined to have breached state election systems, there was no evidence that any results were altered.
Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID), who chairs the Foreign Relations Committee and is the only Republican on Intel since the 2019 report, declined to comment.
Democrats have been far more critical. They say Gabbard’s accusations are part of broader attempts by the administration to rewrite history and offer a “distraction” from politically unfavorable news coverage about the DOJ not releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files.
In a rare statement, Patrick Rodenbush, an Obama spokesperson, said the former president does not “normally dignify the constant nonsense and misinformation flowing out of this White House with a response.” Rubio’s role in the Senate investigation was also mentioned.
“But these claims are outrageous enough to merit one. These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction,” Rodenbush said. “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. These findings were affirmed in a 2020 report by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, led by then-Chairman Marco Rubio.”
Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said Gabbard was misconstruing the facts by “repackaging already-debunked conspiracy theories.”
“We all did say, unequivocally, that there was an influence campaign,” Warner told the Washington Examiner, recalling the bipartisan Senate report. “And the irony of what she’s saying now is, if you simply look at the worldwide threat analysis with her name on it, it still cites Russian-maligned influence and election interfering.”
Some Democrats have assailed Gabbard’s rhetoric as “dangerous” or opined that it’s a coordinated distraction from unfavorable media headlines.
GABBARD SAYS OBAMA ADMINISTRATION ‘MANUFACTURED INTELLIGENCE’ ON 2016 ELECTION INTERFERENCE
Sen. Angus King (I-ME), an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said Gabbard’s assertions were the “classic definition of a straw man and a distraction.”
“Her big exposé is [that] the Russians didn’t interfere with election infrastructure. Nobody ever said that it did,” King said. “It would have been malpractice for the intelligence community to have not followed up with the leads that they had.”
