Newly declassified intelligence documents released by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard appear to directly contradict earlier public and congressional statements made by senior Obama-era intelligence officials regarding Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
The declassifications, made public Friday, focus on the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) that concluded Russian President Vladimir Putin interfered in the 2016 election with a “clear preference” for then-candidate Donald Trump.
The ICA was initially prepared and released under the direction of former CIA Director John Brennan and was backed publicly by former FBI Director James Comey and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.
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However, the newly released files raise questions about the sourcing, analytical standards, and accuracy of the ICA’s conclusions.
One file shows that both the FBI and the National Security Agency (NSA) expressed “low confidence” in attributing specific cyber operations to Russian state actors.
The document states, “They agree that the disclosures appear consistent with what we might expect from Russian influence activities but note that we lack sufficient technical details to correlate the information posted online to Russian state-sponsored actors.”
Despite this internal uncertainty, Comey testified before Congress in 2017 that Russian interference was backed by a “high confidence judgment of the entire intelligence community.”
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He added, “It’s not a close call. That happened. That’s about as unfake as you can possibly get.”
Hey everybody, watch James Comey lie under oath in 2017 about the seriousness of “Russian election interference.”
The memo that DNI Gabbard released proves clearly that Comey was lying during this testimony. He needs to be held accountable for the damage he did to this country. pic.twitter.com/rowA74bs4C
— MAZE (@mazemoore) July 19, 2025
In a separate development, the declassified files show that the Steele dossier — a collection of memos compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele — was pushed for inclusion in the ICA by Brennan.
This contradicts Brennan’s 2018 remarks on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” when he stated that the Steele dossier “did not play any role whatsoever in the intelligence community assessments that was done that was presented to then President Obama and then President-elect Trump.”
February, 2018. John Brennan on the Steele dossier: “It did not play any role whatsoever in the Intelligence Community Assessment that was done that was presented to then President Obama.”
That was a lie. pic.twitter.com/DymVLMBhWx
— MAZE (@mazemoore) July 23, 2025
The Steele dossier, funded indirectly by Hillary Clinton’s campaign through the law firm Perkins Coie and research firm Fusion GPS, has since been widely discredited.
It served as part of the foundation for surveillance warrants and media reports that alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.
Another declassified report published by DNI Gabbard suggests that key findings in the ICA were shaped by selective sourcing.
According to the document, Brennan ordered the post-election publication of 15 intelligence reports, three of which were described as “substandard.”
The report states that these three reports contained “information that was unclear, of uncertain origin, potentially biased or implausible,” but were still used to support the ICA’s judgment that Putin favored Trump.
The report adds, “One scant, unclear, and unverifiable fragment of a sentence from one of these substandard reports constitutes the only classified information cited to suggest Putin ‘aspired’ to help Trump win.”
In addition, Gabbard’s office released a file indicating that Russian intelligence had reportedly collected damaging information on Hillary Clinton, including claims that she was taking “heavy tranquilizers” daily.
NEW: Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard suggests Hillary Clinton used tranquilizers and had “psycho emotional problems.”
“There were high level DNC emails that detailed evidence of Hillary’s, quote, psycho emotional problems, uncontrolled fits of anger…”
Least… pic.twitter.com/kO1rAXguFX
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) July 23, 2025
However, that information was never released, further complicating the conclusion that Russia worked to damage Clinton while supporting Trump.
Clapper, speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union” in 2018, had said the Russians clearly aimed to “damage Clinton and help Trump.”
The report released Friday challenges that conclusion, stating, “The judgement that Putin developed a ‘clear preference for candidate Trump and aspired to help his chances of victory’ did not adhere to the tenets of the ICD (Intelligence Community Directive) analytical standards.”
As more intelligence records from the Obama-era investigations are declassified, scrutiny continues to grow over the accuracy and motives behind the 2017 ICA and public statements that followed.