CNN analyst claims Trump admin aiding Russia by releasing 2020 intel report

CNN National Security Analyst Beth Sanner accused the Trump administration of aiding Russia after the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, declassified a report prepared by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence back in 2020 on Wednesday.

Sanner slammed the administration on Wednesday for releasing the report, which she claimed included “cherry-picked examples” that ran contrary to the intelligence community’s assessment at the time that Russian President Vladimir Putin meddled in the 2016 election in hopes of helping President Donald Trump win.

“What I don’t appreciate is that these are cherry-picked examples that they are quibbling, angels dancing on the head of a pin when we have volumes of reporting,” she asserted. “You’re always going to find one report that’s different, OK, whatever.”

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The report revealed that the intelligence community did not have any direct information that Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to help elect Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election, but, at the “unusual” direction of then-President Barack Obama, published “potentially biased” or “implausible” intelligence suggesting otherwise.

The report states that then-CIA Director John Brennan “ordered the post-election publication of 15 reports containing previously collected but unpublished intelligence, three of which were substandard—containing information that was unclear, of uncertain origin, potentially biased, or implausible—and those became foundational sources for the ICA judgements that Putin preferred Trump over Clinton.”

The CNN analyst disputed these findings, arguing that the “big message” for Americans is that “Russia tried to interfere in our election processes with the point of undermining our confidence in our democracy and, by bringing this up again, the Trump administration is doing the work of our adversary Russia.”

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Sanner’s claims stand in stark contrast to Gabbard’s statements made at a White House press briefing Wednesday, alleging the Obama administration promoted a “contrived narrative” that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. 

“There is irrefutable evidence that details how President Obama and his national security team directed the creation of an intelligence community assessment that they knew was false,” Gabbard said. “They knew it would promote this contrived narrative that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help President Trump win, selling it to the American people as though it were true. It wasn’t.” 

Fox News’ Brooke Singman and Diana Stacey contributed to this report.