On July 18, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a press statement claiming that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard uncovered proof that former President Barack Obama “manufactured and politicized intelligence” about Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election to launch a “years-long coup against President Trump.”
Gabbard’s false claim is built upon a strawman fallacy, which assumes what the opposition believes. To support her claim, she released files that contain Obama officials discussing Russian interference. The officials reached a consensus that it was unlikely that Russia could change the results of an election or damage election infrastructure, though it could diminish trust in the electoral process. Gabbard then concluded that such a consensus contradicted the 2017 intelligence community assessment that Russia did attempt to influence the election. In reality, the Obama officials did not say anything that would dispute this.
The 2017 assessment focuses on Russian influence, from social media disinformation networks, hack-and-leak campaigns, Russian bot farms and other more psychological efforts made by Russian actors. Intelligence community experts acknowledge that Russian hacking targeting election infrastructure was likely limited and aimed at gathering intelligence.
NPR
Gabbard’s hypothesis has more logical gaps than the 2017 intelligence community assessment. If the Obama administration did manufacture this intelligence, why then did they not leverage it to undermine Trump’s campaign? The Obama administration knew about Russian political interference as early as 2014. The White House at the time hardly acted upon this knowledge, fearing reprisals from Russia.
This is not the first time that Gabbard has occupied herself with conspiracy theories. During the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, she claimed that Russia was justified in doing so because the United States had biolabs in Ukraine. She also hired a fellow conspiracy theorist for a top intelligence position.
