Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released an email Wednesday that appears to put former DNI James Clapper squarely in the hot seat over his role in pushing the now-discredited Russia collusion narrative during the final days of the Obama administration.
?Newly declassified Top Secret emails sent on December 22, 2016 complying with President Obama’s order to create the manufactured January 2017 ICA about Russia expose how DNI James Clapper demanded the IC fall in line behind the Russia Hoax. Clapper admits that it was a “team… pic.twitter.com/fVHq9E1no7
— DNI Tulsi Gabbard (@DNIGabbard) August 13, 2025
The email, dated late December 2016, was sent by Clapper to then-FBI Director James Comey, then-CIA Director John Brennan, and National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers. It was in direct response to concerns Rogers had raised earlier that day about the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) — the report that would later be presented to President Barack Obama and cited as key evidence in the Russia hoax.
Rogers had expressed doubts about whether his team had adequate access to the underlying intelligence used to produce the ICA and enough time to thoroughly review it. “On both points my team raised concerns,” Rogers wrote, making it clear he would not co-author or sign off on the assessment unless NSA analysts had seen all relevant material and could fully stand by its conclusions.
Clapper’s response made clear he wanted the intelligence chiefs on the same page, regardless of the NSA’s hesitations. “Understand your concern. It is essential that we (CIA/NSA/FBI/ODNI) be on the same page, and are all supportive of the report — in the highest tradition of ‘that’s OUR story, and we’re stickin’ to it.’” He informed the group that the CIA had already provided a complete draft generated by the “ad hoc fusion cell” to the National Intelligence Council and that the timeline would not be extended. “More time is not negotiable. We may have to compromise on our ‘normal’ modalities, since we must do this on such a compressed schedule,” Clapper wrote.
He closed the email by stressing unity over caution: “This is one project that has to be a team sport.”
The exchange suggests that speed and consensus were prioritized over rigorous verification in producing a politically explosive report, adding to mounting criticism that senior Obama-era intelligence officials coordinated the Russia narrative despite internal dissent. Gabbard’s decision to publicize the email raises fresh questions about the political motivations behind the ICA and the degree to which dissenting voices within the intelligence community were sidelined.
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