Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released new documents, showing the “most egregious weaponization” in American history. 

This is the latest in a series of releases, showing how former President Barack Obama allegedly planned a “years-long coup” against President Donald Trump.

Gabbard declassified a September 18, 2020, report from the House Oversight Committee, which analyzed the document Obama ordered officials to create as the foundation of the Trump-Russia collusion narrative. The Obama report made some “credible” claims, while numerous others fell below intelligence standards.

Claims

After Trump’s 2016 victory, Obama ordered officials to counter previous intelligence findings –  and create an “Intelligence Community Assessment” on the “Russian Influence Campaign Targeting the 2016 US Presidential Election.” This report became the foundation of the Trump-Russian collusion narrative.

Obama’s report made a few “credible” claims – including that Putin “ordered conventional and cyber influence operations,” he wanted to “undermine faith in the US democratic process,” and he “held back leaking some compromising material” on what would have been the Clinton administration, according to the newly-released document.

But his ICA report also fell below intelligence standards in numerous ways, like when it claimed Putin had a “clear preference” for Trump and “aspired to help his chances of victory,” according to the new document. 

The Obama report based Putin’s supposed preference for Trump upon a “questionable interpretation” of a sentence fragment, from a source who had both a “strong dislike of Putin” and “an anti-Trump bias,” the document said. 

After Trump won, then-CIA Director John Brennan published numerous reports advancing the Russia collusion narrative, including three that were “substandard” – “containing information that was unclear, of uncertain origin, potentially biased, or implausible.”

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“Those became foundational sources for the ICA judgments that Putin preferred Trump over Clinton,” the document reads. “The ICA misrepresented these reports as reliable, without mentioning their significant underlying flaws.”

The Obama ICA report “failed to consider plausible alternative explanations of Putin’s intentions,” according to the new document. Officials also “rushed” the report to “publish two weeks before President-elect Trump was sworn-in.” 

“These failures were serious enough to call into question judgments that allege Putin ‘developed a clear preference for candidate Trump’ and ‘aspired to help his chances of victory,’” the document reads. 

A ‘180 Degree Shift’ 

Top American intelligence officials assessed before the 2016 election that Russia could not influence the outcome, according to documents released by Gabbard on July 18. But after Trump’s victory, Obama held a meeting with top officials, ordered them to create the ICA – about how Russia supposedly influenced the election to elect Trump.

Officials canceled an Obama briefing, which would have contradicted the Trump-Russia narrative on December 8, 2017. The next day, Obama held a meeting with then-FBI Director James Comey, then-CIA Director John Brennan, and then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. He ordered them to create the ICA, detailing “the tools Moscow used and the actions it took to influence the 2016 election.”

Obama officials leaked this “classified” information to outlets like The Washington Post and NBC News, pushing the Trump-Russia collusion narrative. Clapper unveiled the ICA report on January 6, 2017 – just days before Trump would take office.

Officials used the discredited Christopher Steele dossier to create this report, according to Gabbard. She called it a “gross weaponization of intelligence that laid the groundwork for a years-long coup intended to subvert President Trump’s entire presidency.”

“After Donald Trump was elected, led by President Obama, there was an effort to create a document that would serve as a foundation for what would be a years-long coup against President Trump, therefore trying to subvert the will of the American people,” Gabbard said on July 22, 2025, on Fox News. 

Obama Spokesman Patrick Rodenbush dismissed these concerns, according to Axios. 

“These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction,” Rodenbush said. “Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes.”

But Gabbard said on Fox News that Obama and other Democrats are echoing “that exact same statement,” failing to address the allegations directly. 

“It’s the art of deflection,” she said. “There was a shift-a 180-degree shift–from the intelligence community’s assessment leading up to the election, to the one that President Obama directed be produced after Donald Trump won the election.”

“There’s a long laundry list of facts and intelligence reporting that directly contradict the statement coming from President Obama’s office,” Gabbard continued, “and those who are trying to deflect away from what actually happened.”