Early Washington Post reporting alleging a plot by Russian President Vladimir Putin to install President Donald Trump in the 2016 election used “blatantly false” intelligence, according to memo released Friday by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
Gabbard — who appointed a working group to declassify intelligence and curb spy agency abuses in April — chronicles in the new memo and underlying documents that President Barack Obama directed an Intelligence Community Assessment of Russian election interference tailor made for the press despite repeated findings by the intelligence community (IC) before the election that Russian authorities did not have such capabilities. Citing newly declassified intelligence, the memo states that Obama’s tasking spurred the leak of “blatantly false” intelligence to Washington Post reporters, further jeopardizing the 2018 Pulitzer Prize the newspaper received for reporting on allegations of collusion.
🧵 Americans will finally learn the truth about how in 2016, intelligence was politicized and weaponized by the most powerful people in the Obama Administration to lay the groundwork for what was essentially a years-long coup against President @realDonaldTrump, subverting the… pic.twitter.com/UQKKZ5c4Op
— DNI Tulsi Gabbard (@DNIGabbard) July 18, 2025
A lawsuit has brought new scrutiny to the relentless reporting on the Russiagate saga by the Post and the New York Times. Trump sued the influential legacy journalists who comprise the Pulitzer Prize Board of Directors following a 2022 statement defending jointly awarding the 2018 prize to the Post and the Times, asserting that “no passages or headlines, contentions or assertions in any of the winning submissions were discredited by facts that emerged subsequent to the conferral of the prizes.”
Multiple IC reports — including a December 2016 Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) drafted but scuttled just one day before Post reporting alleging intelligence pointed to Russian interference — concluded that Russia did not have the capabilities to interfere in the election.
“Russian and criminal actors did not impact recent US election results by conducting malicious cyber activities against election infrastructure,” a snapshot of the draft PDB included in the new Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) memo reads.
However the PDB was nixed after the FBI — under then-Director James Comey — withdrew its cooperation and began drafting a dissent. FBI and the Department of Justice Comey are reportedly investigating Comey for a criminal conspiracy related to the weaponized intelligence.
The next day, on Dec. 9, 2016, Obama convened a meeting in the White House Situation Room with Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan and other national security officials on “Russian meddling,” declassified documents show.
The IC was tasked by Obama to put together two assessments: a classified version and a non-classified version to be made public.
The same day, with the assessment barely underway, the Post published reporting claiming that intelligence showed Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency — a conclusion diametrically at odds with prior intelligence products, and which the new ODNI memo describes as “blatantly false.”
Requests for comment from the Post and reporters Ellen Nakashima, Adam Entous, Greg Miller did not receive an immediate response.
Gabbard accused Nakashima of harassing ODNI staff on July 3.
It has come to my attention that Washington Post reporter @nakashimae appears to be actively harassing ODNI staff. Instead of reaching out to my press office, she is calling high level Intelligence Officers from a burner phone, refusing to identify herself, lying about the fact…
— DNI Tulsi Gabbard (@DNIGabbard) July 3, 2025
The Post responded in a statement defending Nakashima that “reaching out to potential sources rather than relying solely on official government press statements regarding matters of public interest is neither nefarious nor is it harassment. It is basic journalism.”
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