Gabbard’s Russian interference claims directly contradict what other Trump officials have said

 https://edition.cnn.com/2025/07/22/politics/tulsi-gabbard-russia-trump-obama-analysis

When President Donald Trump sided with Vladimir Putin over his own intelligence community on the topic of Russia’s interference in the 2016 US election, then-Sen. Marco Rubio sharply rebuked Trump.

The Florida Republican said in 2018 that the intelligence community’s “assessment of 2016 is accurate. It’s 100% accurate. The Russians interfered in our elections.”

He added: “I think it was not a good moment for the administration, obviously. Hopefully, something like that never happens again.”

But seven years later, it just keeps happening — over and over again — as Trump and his most loyal allies seek to sow doubts about that 2016 episode and punish their political enemies. That’s now taken the form of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard threatening criminal referrals and even floating allegations of treason for key officials in the Obama administration.

Her argument is full of holes, as even critics of the Russia investigation such as the National Review’s Andrew McCarthy have noted. (Basically, the whole thing conflates Russia’s attempts to influence the 2016 election with nonexistent attacks on election infrastructure that changed votes. )

But just as notable is that Gabbard’s move to cast doubt on Russia’s 2016 interference is wholly at odds with several top Trump administration officials, most especially Rubio, along with a pair of congressional investigations spearheaded by Republicans.

“The Committee found that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian effort to hack computer networks and accounts affiliated with the Democratic Party and leak information damaging to Hillary Clinton and her campaign for president,” the report said. “Moscow’s intent was to harm the Clinton Campaign, tarnish an expected Clinton presidential administration, help the Trump Campaign after Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee, and undermine the U.S. democratic process.”