A recently declassified report from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has shed light on the origins of the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA), which claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin favored Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The document, made public by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, says former CIA Director John Brennan pushed for the inclusion of potentially unreliable and biased reports to support this narrative, despite warnings from intelligence officials about the lack of solid evidence.

Then-President Barack Obama gave the order to release the information.

According to the document:

Acting on President Obama’s orders, DCIA Brennan directed a “full review” and publication of raw HUMINT information that had been collected before the election. CIA officers said that some of this information had been held on orders of the DCIA, while other reporting had been judged by experienced CIA officers to have not met longstanding publication standards. Some of the latter was unclear or from unknown subsources, but would nonetheless be published after the election – on orders of DCIA and cited in the ICA to support claims that Putin aspired to help Trump win.

🚨 BREAKING: DNI Tulsi Gabbard just released reports PROVING that Obama DIRECTLY gave the order to publish the Russia Collusion Hoax, knowing there was no proof that Putin backed Trump

Holy CRAP.

Tulsi just proved Obama lied AGAIN in his statement yesterday.

Obama should be… pic.twitter.com/vLF5c8fde0

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) July 23, 2025

The 2020 report, originally classified and stored in a secure vault at CIA headquarters, was the result of an investigation initiated by then-Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.). It criticizes the rushed production of the ICA, which was commissioned by President Barack Obama and overseen by top intelligence leaders, including Brennan.

Drafted primarily by a small team of five CIA analysts, the assessment was finalized just two weeks before Trump’s inauguration, with limited input from the broader intelligence community. This haste, the report argues, led to overlooked issues in sourcing and analysis.

Central to the findings is the assertion that the ICA lacked direct evidence of Putin’s desire to aid Trump’s victory. Instead, it relied on 15 post-election intelligence reports published under Brennan’s direction, three of which were deemed substandard due to their unclear, uncertain, or implausible content. These flawed reports formed the backbone of the ICA’s key judgments, portraying them as credible without disclosing their shortcomings.

Notably, the only classified snippet suggesting Putin “aspired” to help Trump was a vague and unverifiable fragment from one of these problematic sources.

The report further accuses the ICA of cherry-picking intelligence, ignoring or downplaying information that contradicted the preferred narrative. Reliable sources indicated that Russian officials anticipated a Clinton win and believed they could negotiate effectively with her administration. Other intelligence showed Putin was indifferent to the election outcome and even viewed Clinton as a weaker leader who could be more easily influenced. The assessment also failed to explore why Russia did not release additional damaging material on Clinton as the race tightened, despite having opportunities to do so.

Two high-ranking CIA officers reportedly advised Brennan that no concrete evidence existed to support claims of Putin’s pro-Trump bias, yet the ICA proceeded. Additional insights from a close Putin associate, included in the report, described the Russian leader’s apathy toward the candidates, highlighting vulnerabilities in both Trump and Clinton.

This declassification aligns with earlier revelations from 2017 and 2018 House Intelligence Committee interviews with Obama-era officials, such as James Clapper, Susan Rice, Loretta Lynch, Samantha Power, Ben Rhodes, and Andrew McCabe. These figures admitted under oath to lacking any “empirical evidence” of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, consistent with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s later conclusion of no criminal coordination. Despite this, many continued to promote the collusion story in public statements.

The report also touches on related events, including a July 2016 briefing by Brennan and then-FBI Director James Comey to Obama about intelligence indicating Clinton’s campaign intended to link Trump to Russia as a distraction. In January 2017, Comey briefed Trump on the Steele dossier—a collection of unverified claims funded by Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee—which was dismissed internally as “internet rumor” but still influenced investigations.

Brennan and Comey are currently subjects of an FBI criminal probe related to the Russia investigation, following referrals from former CIA Director John Ratcliffe to FBI Director Kash Patel. Gabbard has also forwarded criminal referrals to the Department of Justice for those accused of producing “manufactured” and “politicized” intelligence.

In response, a spokesperson for Obama dismissed the allegations as “bizarre” and “ridiculous,” emphasizing that they do not undermine the consensus that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to sow discord, though without altering votes.