Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard reportedly bypassed objections from the CIA and other intelligence agencies when she released a largely unredacted House Intelligence Committee report on the 2016 election, according to anonymous sources cited by The Washington Post.
The Post claimed CIA officials feared the version Gabbard approved for release revealed “top-secret spying techniques and sources.” They allegedly wanted her to send a more heavily redacted version to President Donald Trump for final approval. Instead, sources said, Gabbard used her greater declassification authority to release the report with “minimal redactions and no edits,” a move Trump signed off on.
The document in question was a 2020 review of the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) on “Russia’s Influence Campaign Targeting the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election.” Conducted by the House Intelligence Committee, the review concluded senior intelligence officials had withheld evidence that contradicted the claim Russia favored Trump over Hillary Clinton. It said the ICA’s only classified reference supporting the claim was “a scant, unclear, and unverifiable fragment of a sentence” from a weak intelligence report.
Much of The Washington Post’s reporting relied on unnamed sources described as “people familiar with the matter,” “current and former U.S. officials,” and “a person familiar with the process.” These individuals said the report underwent multiple reviews by intelligence officials and ODNI lawyers before release, but that Gabbard consistently pushed for maximum transparency.
The CIA declined to say whether it would take action against possible leakers. In the past, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has referred similar matters to the Department of Justice. CIA Director of Public Affairs Liz Lyons told the Daily Caller that Director John Ratcliffe supports releasing the committee’s report, calling it part of a broader effort to “bring transparency to the American people.”
Gabbard has also released other files related to early investigations of alleged Russian interference, which she said reveal “Deep State officials” leaking false intelligence to the media. One leak, according to ODNI records, involved a claim to The Washington Post that the CIA had secretly concluded Russia interfered to help Trump.
The Post and The New York Times jointly won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for their coverage of Russian interference allegations, but critics—including Trump and FBI Director Kash Patel—have challenged the award. Trump sued the Pulitzer board for defamation in 2022, and Patel recently suggested he might release additional FBI documents to expose “who is lying.”
