Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has declassified a long-buried House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) report exposing the fraud at the heart of the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) released in January 2017.
That ICA — produced by the CIA, FBI, and NSA at the behest of President Obama — claimed that Vladimir Putin helped Donald Trump win the presidency. It became a weaponized talking point, casting a shadow over Trump’s legitimacy before he even took office.
The HPSCI launched its investigation into the ICA on January 25, 2017, just days after Trump was sworn in. Then-Chairman Devin Nunes, who would later play a pivotal role in unraveling the Russiagate hoax, apparently sensed something was deeply wrong. But the committee’s investigation was met with years of stonewalling and obstruction from intelligence agencies. The report just released dates back to September 2020 but was kept from the public until now. Only now, under Gabbard’s leadership, is it finally seeing the light of day.
And it is explosive.
One key document, newly released by Gabbard just days ago, serves as a critical anchor: the
draft President’s Daily Brief (PDB) from Dec. 8, 2016. It stated that Russian activity was “probably intended to cause psychological effects, such as undermining the credibility of the election process and candidates.” Notably, it did not assess that Putin preferred Trump.
Yet, as the new HPSCI report reveals, President Obama had already ordered the creation of the ICA two days earlier, on Dec. 6, before the PDB, and before any intelligence concluded that Putin had a preference. The conclusion came first. The intelligence was bent to match it.
...
The intelligence community had clear evidence that Putin did not prefer Trump. One CIA assessment noted that Russian intelligence had collected damaging material on Hillary Clinton but never released it. If Russia truly wanted Trump to win, why hold back?
Over and over again, the ICA claimed Putin wanted Trump, while the underlying intelligence either said he had no preference or leaned toward Clinton.
Brennan, aided by Comey, engineered the fraudulent core of the ICA — but it was Obama who set the wheels in motion by ordering it in advance, placing him at the foundation of the deception and no less accountable than those who executed it.https://thefederalist.com/2025/07/25/john-brennans-5-lies-that-set-russiagate-in...