Tulsi Gabbard on Russiagate Hoax Evidence and How She’s Reforming Politicized Intelligence Agencies

Gabbard said newly declassified records show Obama-era intelligence leaders reversed earlier assessments on Russian election interference after Trump won in 2016. She highlighted a December 8 presidential brief saying Russia had not affected the election outcome, its withdrawal hours before publication, and a December 9 Obama tasking for a new assessment on Russian meddling.

She portrayed the January 2017 Russia assessment as a leadership-driven product that relied on disputed material despite objections from intelligence professionals. Gabbard said senior CIA officials challenged some sources, including the Steele dossier, while previously hidden emails show NSA chief Mike Rogers resisted signing because his agency lacked time to vet the report.

Gabbard did not claim Russia stayed out of the 2016 election; she said intelligence showed Moscow sought to sow chaos, while disputing the stronger claim that Trump was controlled by Russia. Under questioning, she also agreed that an honest FBI should investigate suspicious contacts, while arguing the FBI leadership conducting those investigations had become politicized.

Her response to the intelligence abuses she alleges is personnel reduction, internal restructuring, declassification and criminal referral rather than one sweeping institutional reform. Gabbard said she has already cut staffing and reorganized ODNI around mission priorities, while sending the documents her office uncovered to the Justice Department for possible accountability.

Gabbard defended Trump’s strike on Iran as a narrowly defined operation with a clear objective and exit, rejecting reports that she opposed it. She said Iran’s nuclear capability and much of its military infrastructure were destroyed, but warned that economic collapse or regime instability could produce consequences the United States cannot reliably control.

The administration’s designation of major cartels as foreign terrorist organizations has pulled the U.S. counterterrorism apparatus directly into the anti-cartel and fentanyl fight. Gabbard said the National Counterterrorism Center now coordinates with federal and local law enforcement against groups using drones, counterintelligence and sophisticated weapons inside and near the U.S. border.

Gabbard explicitly rejected the claim that U.S. intelligence shows China is deliberately using fentanyl to destabilize America. She said Chinese precursor chemicals remain part of negotiations, but reported that cartels are having more difficulty obtaining those inputs and that fentanyl flows appear to be declining alongside tighter border enforcement.