Gabbard made a surprise appearance at the White House press briefing just hours after she made public a declassified report from House Republicans that was produced during the first Trump administration. The report does not dispute the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia interfered in the election, but indicates Obama led an effort to plant a narrative that Russia wanted Trump to win the 2016 election, even though Obama knew there was no proof to back that assertion.
"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."
Gabbard said Obama did a “disservice to the American people” when his office attacked the government’s rehashed grievances over the Russia investigation that overshadowed President Donald Trump’s first term.
Obama’s post-presidential office issued a rare statement on Tuesday, condemning the Trump administration’s allegations as a “ridiculous and “a weak attempt at distraction.”
Asked about it at a Wednesday press briefing, Gabbard said Obama and others from his administration are “trying to deflect away from their culpability in what is a historic scandal.”
