In 2019, I argued that the Kremlin favored Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump in the 2016 election, a contrarian viewpoint at the time.
I asserted that Putin saw her as a predictable and pliable figure whose tenure as Secretary of State had already benefitted Russian interests. The narrative of Trump-Russia collusion, relentlessly pushed by the Obama administration, was a fabrication designed to undermine a duly elected president. Now, in 2025, declassified documents released by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard confirm this. These revelations expose Barack Obama’s direct intervention to override the intelligence community’s assessments, manufacturing a false narrative of Russian interference to delegitimize Trump’s victory. This was not just politicization of intelligence—it was a calculated betrayal of American democracy.
Gabbard’s documents, released on July 17, 2025, reveal that the intelligence community concluded before the 2016 election that Russia was “probably not trying … to influence the election by using cyber means.” A December 7, 2016, memo prepared for then-DNI James Clapper stated unequivocally that “foreign adversaries did not use cyberattacks on election infrastructure to alter the US Presidential election outcome.” Yet, on December 9, Obama convened a National Security Council meeting with Clapper, CIA Director John Brennan, FBI Director James Comey (in photo with Obama), and others, ordering a new assessment. This directive, as Gabbard’s report shows, leaned on unreliable sources like the Steele dossier—funded by the Clinton campaign—to produce the January 6, 2017, Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA), which falsely claimed Vladimir Putin orchestrated an effort to elect Trump.
This was a deliberate distortion. As I noted in 2019, Russia had every reason to prefer Clinton. Her predictability was a known quantity: the Uranium One deal, which funneled American uranium assets to Russian interests, and the Clinton Foundation’s receipt of hundreds of thousands from Kremlin-linked donors confirmed her as a malleable figure. Trump, with his unpredictable personality and commitment to military strength, posed a far greater challenge to Putin’s ambitions. Russia’s economy, fragile and commodity-dependent, could ill afford an arms race with a Trump-led America that spends freely on defense. Clinton’s weaker foreign policy, exemplified by Obama’s tepid response to the Crimea annexation, promised Putin a freer hand in destabilizing former Soviet states like Ukraine, Estonia, or Lithuania.
The liberal media’s response to Gabbard’s disclosures has been a masterclass in hypocrisy and bias, exposing their role as cheerleaders for the Russia hoax. Outlets like CNN, MSNBC, and The New York Times have downplayed or outright ignored the declassified documents, framing them as a politically motivated stunt by Gabbard, a former Democrat now vilified for her independence. A July 18, 2025, CNN segment dismissed the report as “unsubstantiated” and “divisive,” while a Times op-ed labeled it “a distraction from real Russian threats.” These outlets, which spent years amplifying the baseless Trump-Russia collusion narrative, now refuse to engage with over 100 pages of evidence—emails, memos, and briefings—that expose Obama’s manipulation of intelligence. This selective outrage is staggering. The same media that breathlessly reported every unverified claim in the Steele dossier now demands “context” and “corroboration” when faced with damning primary documents.
For years, liberal journalists lionized figures like Brennan and Comey, casting them as defenders of democracy against a supposedly traitorous Trump. Yet when Gabbard’s report names them as central to a “treasonous conspiracy,” these outlets pivot to deflection, accusing her of undermining national security. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, who once devoted entire segments to Trump’s alleged Kremlin ties, now calls the disclosures “a partisan hit job,” ignoring the whistleblower testimony that shocked even ODNI insiders about the dossier’s influence. This double standard—embracing unverified gossip when it suits their narrative but dismissing hard evidence when it doesn’t—reveals a media more interested in protecting Democratic allies than pursuing truth. Their silence on Obama’s overreach betrays the same bias that fueled their McCarthyite smear of Trump, proving they’re less journalists than propagandists for a discredited cause.
In 2019, I noted that Putin’s goal was not to elect Trump but to sow discord, believing—like most—that Clinton would win. When Trump shocked the world, Russia’s agitprop pivoted to fuel anti-Trump protests, amplified by American media. Gabbard’s documents confirm this, showing that the intelligence community’s pre-election assessments aligned with this reality but were overridden by Obama’s directive. The Steele dossier, known to be unreliable even by its proponents, was a linchpin in this scheme. A whistleblower cited in Gabbard’s report expressed shock that such a “sloppily compiled piece of opposition research” influenced the 2017 ICA, underscoring the manipulation at play.
Democrats dismiss Gabbard’s findings as partisan, with Senator Mark Warner claiming his 2020 Senate report found no evidence of Obama’s interference. But that report focused on Russian actions, not Obama’s conduct—a convenient dodge. Representative Jim Himes calls the accusations “baseless,” yet over 100 pages of declassified emails, memos, and briefings tell a different story. They reveal a deliberate shift from pre-election assessments downplaying Russian intent to a post-election narrative exaggerating it, all under Obama’s orders. This was, as Gabbard’s report labels it, a “treasonous conspiracy” to subvert the electorate’s will.
The consequences were profound: the Mueller investigation, two impeachments, and heightened U.S.-Russia tensions—all rooted in a lie. The collusion narrative was a McCarthyite smear, and Gabbard’s documents prove it. Obama’s team, led by figures like Brennan, who later claimed Trump was “wholly in the pocket of Putin,” weaponized intelligence to paint him as a traitor. This was not about national security; it was about power.
Gabbard’s courage in exposing this demands action. Her referral of Clapper, Brennan, Comey, and others to the Justice Department for criminal investigation is a start, but accountability must follow. The Russia hoax divided our nation, weakened our presidency, and played into Putin’s hands by sowing chaos.
Peter Flaherty is Chairman of the National Legal and Poliy Center.
