Nick Schifrin:
Tulsi Gabbard today released a previously classified House intelligence report that questioned the intelligence community assessment about 2016 that Vladimir Putin preferred Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton.
The report was written by Republican staff in 2017 and amended in 2020 and concludes — quote — “The judgment that Putin developed a clear preference for candidate Trump and aspired to help his chances of victory did not adhere to intelligence community standards because it came from information that was ‘unclear, of uncertain origin, potentially biased or implausible.'”
That echoes a document released by CIA Director John Ratcliffe last month, you see it right there, that accused former CIA Director John Brennan of coming into conclusion that Putin preferred Trump with a — quote — “highly compressed production timeline, stringent compartmentalization and excessive involvement of agency heads, all of which led to departures from standard practices.”
Geoff, I have talked to former intelligence officials who worked on all of these reports, and they stand by the conclusion that Putin preferred Trump, but they do acknowledge that that specific conclusion was from a single source and there was a debate inside the intelligence community about the level of confidence about that conclusion.
I also talked to Democrats on the House intelligence community today, and they say that that report from Republican staff was — quote — “politicized” and that the fundamental facts are not in dispute, that the Russians interfered in 2016 and displayed a clear preference for Donald Trump.
But Republicans, Gabbard today, John Ratcliffe, director of CIA, in the past have said that the source for that specific conclusion about Putin for Trump was unreliable, was biased. And they’re using that specific point to question what President Trump, of course, calls the entire Russian hoax.
