(Worthy Insights) – President Barack Obama made public statements as early as mid-December 2016 indicating that he was endorsing a predetermined CIA view about Vladimir Putin allegedly wanting Donald Trump to win and Hillary Clinton to lose. The intelligence community assessment (ICA) had not even been completed and was still being debated and drafted.
The record — bolstered by newly-declassified documents — shows that Obama was a central figure at key points throughout the Russiagate saga. Obama directed the creation of a new ICA on Russian meddling only after Trump was victorious in November 2016. Well before the ICA was finalized, Obama repeatedly endorsed the controversial and inaccurate conclusion from the CIA, run at the time by Director John Brennan. That conclusion was spun into a widely-adopted narrative that Putin had allegedly ordered election meddling in 2016 to hurt Clinton’s chances and to help Trump win.
Obama endorsed an anonymously-leaked CIA assessment on Russian meddling in mid-December 2016 during an interview with NPR, roughly two weeks before the ICA was finalized in late December 2016. Obama said during the interview that no one should be “surprised by the CIA assessment that this was done purposely to improve Trump’s chances” — a claim he was making following anonymous leaks to the media about the CIA’s alleged position, preempting the completion of the formal ICA later that month. [ Source (Read More…) ]