AG Pam Bondi launches ‘strike force' after declassified intel reveals Obama admin's flawed 2016 Trump-Russia probe
Bondi announced that the Department of Justice will review all the evidence compiled by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard about the 'substandard' intelligence in the probe — including 'fabricated' information from the now-debunked dossier peddled by MI6 spy Christopher Steele.
'The Department of Justice is proud to work with my friend Director Gabbard and we are grateful for her partnership in delivering accountability for the American people,' the AG said.
8 Attorney General Pam Bondi launched a 'strike force' late Wednesday to investigate newly declassified intelligence findings that the Obama administration's probe of Russian influence in the 2016 election was deeply flawed.
AFP via Getty Images
'We will investigate these troubling disclosures fully and leave no stone unturned to deliver justice.'
The FBI earlier this month initiated an investigation into former CIA Director John Brennan and ex-FBI Director James Comey for any potential criminal actions taken as part of the Trump-Russia probe.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe previously handed over additional evidence to the DOJ about Brennan's botched assessment, confirming other lapses in intelligence gathering for that probe, which was ordered by former President Barack Obama during a Dec. 9, 2016, Oval Office meeting.
8 Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard accused the Obama administration of having 'fabricated' information put into the 2017 intelligence assessment.
Eric Lee / Pool via CNP / SplashNews.com
On Wednesday, Gabbard released a long-anticipated, 44-page report from the House Intelligence Committee that found 'egregious' errors committed by Brennan in the compiling of an assessment that claimed Moscow preferred a Trump victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton.
The report, begun by former House intel chair Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and completed in September 2020, showed Brennan disregarded warnings from 'veteran' CIA officers and chose to include a 'scant, unclear, and unverifiable fragment of a sentence from one of the substandard reports constitutes the only classified information cited to suggest [Russian President Vladimir] Putin 'aspired' to help Trump win.'
Brennan and Comey also pushed for the Steele dossier — which had been funded by the Democratic National Committee and Clinton's campaign — to be included in the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) on the Kremlin's actions amid the presidential contest.
8 The FBI earlier this month initiated an investigation into former CIA Director John Brennan.
Corbis via Getty Images
When confronted by the senior officers about the dossier failing to meet 'basic tradecraft standards,' the CIA honcho reportedly said, 'Yes, but doesn't it ring true?'
Other findings kept out of the ICA assessment also cut against the narrative that Putin wanted Trump to win — and in fact, point to the Russian strongman preparing for a Clinton victory.
'Putin's principal motivations in these operations were to undermine faith in the US democratic process and to weaken what the Russians considered to be an inevitable Clinton presidency,' the report stated.
8 Comey also pushed for the Steele dossier — which had been funded by the Democratic National Committee and Clinton's campaign — to be included in the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA).
REUTERS
Russia's foreign intelligence service, the SVR, further 'possessed DNC communications that Clinton was suffering from 'intensified psycho-emotional problems, including uncontrolled fits of anger, aggression, and cheerfulness,'' but didn't disclose it.
Neither did the SVR leak that the former secretary of state was 'on a daily regimen of 'heavy tranquilizers' and while afraid of losing, she remained 'obsessed with a thirst for power.''
The Kremlin's intel service also held back 'a campaign email discussing a plan approved by Secretary Clinton to link Putin and Russian hackers to candidate Trump in order to 'distract the [American] public' from the Clinton email server scandal.'
8 'It's criminal at the highest level,' Trump erupted Tuesday in the Oval Office after Gabbard disclosed the 44th president's high-level meeting with the spy chiefs in December 2016.
AP
The 2017 ICA sparked accusations of purported Russian collusion with Trump's presidential campaign to win the White House — with high-profile reports by special counsels Robert Mueller and John Durham ultimately debunking the narrative.
'Not only did CIA Director Brennan, FBI Director Comey, DNI [James] Clapper and others include the Steele Dossier in the 2017 ICA, they overruled senior Intel officials who warned them it was fabricated and should not be used,' Gabbard said.
'In doing so, they conspired to subvert the will of the American people, working with their partners in the media to promote the lie, in order to undermine the legitimacy of President Trump, essentially enacting a years-long coup against him,' she added, calling it 'the most egregious weaponization and politicization of intelligence in American history.'
8 The 2017 ICA sparked accusations of purported Russian collusion with Trump's presidential campaign to win the White House.
Getty Images
House Intelligence Committee chairman Rick Crawford (R-Ark.) gave the 2020 report to the CIA, ODNI and White House in March, revealing in a statement Wednesday that he and his predecessor had to endure 'untold levels of obstruction by the CIA' to ultimately release the information to the public.
It's unclear which officials have been identified in Gabbard's criminal referral to the DOJ, but Clapper told CNN Wednesday night that he's already lawyered up. The Post reached out to reps for Brennan and Comey for comment.
'It's criminal at the highest level,' Trump erupted Tuesday in the Oval Office after Gabbard disclosed the 44th president's high-level meeting with the spy chiefs. 'He's guilty … This was treason, this was every word you could think of. They tried to steal the election. They tried to obfuscate the election.'
8 Hhigh-profile reports by special counsels Robert Mueller and John Durham ultimately debunked the Russian collusion narrative.
Getty Images
'Out of respect for the office of the presidency, our office does not normally dignify the constant nonsense and misinformation flowing out of this White House with a response. But these claims are outrageous enough to merit one,' said Patrick Rodenbush, a spokesman for Obama, in a statement Tuesday.
'These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction,' Rodenbush also said.
Democrats — including Senate Intelligence Committee ranking member Mark Warner — have dismissed that any of Gabbard's findings revealed a sinister plot by the Obama administration, pointing to a 2020 bipartisan report that concluded Russia intended to help Trump's campaign in 2016.
8 Then-President Barack Obama met with Comey and other officials on Dec. 9, 2016, to order the intel assessment.
Getty Images
'Nothing in this partisan, previously scuttled document changes that,' Warner (D-Va.) said Wednesday.
'Releasing this so-called report is just another reckless act by a Director of National Intelligence so desperate to please Donald Trump that she is willing to risk classified sources, betray our allies, and politicize the very intelligence she has been entrusted to protect.'
The Senate intel report was unanimously signed off on by every member of the panel, including then-Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), now Trump's secretary of state.
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