US intelligence chief says Obama 'directed' manipulation of 2016 Russia intelligence

​​​​​​​By Michael Hernandez

WASHINGTON (AA) – The US director of national intelligence on Wednesday accused former President Barack Obama of having "directed" the manipulation of intelligence that suggested Russia sought to intervene in the 2016 presidential election on Donald Trump's behalf.

"There is irrefutable evidence that detail how President Obama and his national security team directed the creation of an intelligence community assessment that they knew was false," Tulsi Gabbard told reporters at the White House.

"They knew it would promote this contrived narrative that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help President Trump win, selling it to the American people as though it were true. It wasn't," she added.

Trump on Tuesday accused Obama, the focus of much of the president's ire during his first term, of orchestrating a "coup" against him, urging authorities to “go after” his predecessor.

“The witch hunt that you should be talking about is they caught President Obama," he said. "What they did to this country ... starting in 2016 but ... going up to 2020 ... they tried to rig the election, and they got caught, and there should be very severe consequences for that."

Obama's office called Trump's claims “bizarre …outrageous,” and a "ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction." The former president rejected claims that he manipulated US intelligence.

No evidence presented so far “undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes. These findings were affirmed in a 2020 report by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, led by then-Chairman Marco Rubio," said a Wednesday statement from Obama's office. Rubio is currently Trump’s secretary of state.

The accusations of wrongdoing by Obama, made as Trump finds himself in a firestorm over the Justice Department's refusal to release documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, are part of what the Trump administration is calling a "treasonous conspiracy" against him that was meant to derail his first presidency, in 2017-2021.

Gabbard last Friday released an initial tranche of declassified US intelligence documents that she and the Trump administration said support the claims against Obama and his senior intelligence team, followed by another document on Wednesday.

The US intelligence community concluded in 2017 that "Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election" that sought to "undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary (of State Hillary) Clinton (Trump’s electoral opponent), and harm her electability and potential presidency."

"We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We have high confidence in these judgments," the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in a declassified report released Jan. 6 of that year.

The allegations do not appear to conflict with the determination reached by the intelligence community, but take issue with how it was reached.

Gabbard acknowledged that Russia thought Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton "would win the election," but said the Kremlin withheld "the most damning" information it had on the former secretary of state.

"They had plans to release it just prior to her inauguration, to again sow discord and chaos in America," she said.