Florida AG Launches Grand Jury Investigation into Obama Administration for Alleged Manufacturing of Intelligence on Russia Election Interference

The Attorney General, Pam Bondi, has ordered a federal grand jury investigation into claims that the Obama administration manipulated intelligence regarding Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. This move bears striking similarities to President Trump’s first term when his Attorney General, Bill Barr, alleged government power was used to spy on American citizens.

Barr appointed John Durham to lead an investigation that spanned four years and found numerous FBI missteps in its probe of Trump and Russia. However, the investigation did not result in any criminal charges or significant wrongdoing related to the CIA and intelligence community’s role in concluding that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.

Now, Bondi is asking her prosecutors to investigate a period that has been scrutinized for over eight years. This is the latest instance of the Justice Department being used to target perceived political opponents and enemies during Trump’s tenure.

Elie Honig, a senior legal analyst at CNN and former federal prosecutor, commented, “John Durham was determined to bring criminal charges if he could. And he didn’t get anywhere near the type of charges or the type of players they’re talking about here.” He further added, “This is now the fifth investigation into the same matter. If they want to go down this road again, I don’t see any reason to think they’ll do any better unless they just completely manipulate the facts.”

The new probe was sparked by Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence, who declassified and released several sets of documents she claims are evidence of a “seditious conspiracy.” Gabbard alleges that Obama officials manufactured intelligence to suggest Russia interfered in the election to help Trump win.

When asked about other investigations like Durham’s not finding evidence of her allegations, Gabbard stated, “I don’t know what excuse there is for those who supposedly investigated this previously, whether it was Durham or others, that they were not able to put together the dots and ultimately show the truth to the American people.” She added, “The only logical conclusion I can draw is that there was direct intent to cover up the truth about what occurred and who was responsible.”

While Durham’s investigation focused primarily on FBI missteps documented by the Justice Department inspector general, Gabbard’s allegations are now directed at the CIA and intelligence community.

Durham found that the intelligence community’s assessment of Russia’s election meddling, which detailed a social media influence campaign and cyber operations under President Vladimir Putin, was one of multiple investigations into Moscow’s actions in 2016 that contributed to our understanding of Russian election interference efforts.

However, at the White House podium last month, Gabbard alleged that Obama administration officials knowingly pushed a false narrative about Russia’s election interference, claiming “the evidence we have found and released directly point to President Obama leading the manufacturing of this intelligence assessment.”

In her allegations, Gabbard has conflated and misrepresented what the intelligence community actually concluded in its assessment. For example, she cited various intelligence assessments from 2016 that stated the Russians did not alter election results through cyberattacks aimed at infiltrating voting systems. However, the intelligence community never found any votes were altered in the first place.

She also declassified and released a Republican House Intelligence Committee report that alleged the intelligence community’s assessment that Putin preferred Trump over Hillary Clinton was thinly sourced and ignored contradictory evidence. But unlike Gabbard, the House report did not argue that the intelligence was “manufactured” or that Russian election interference did not occur.

Democrats have accused Gabbard and Trump of using the Russia investigation documents to distract from the controversy surrounding the Jeffrey Epstein files. They argue that Gabbard’s allegations are contradicted by the investigations carried out by Durham, special counsel Robert Mueller, the Justice Department inspector general, and the Senate Intelligence Committee, which all concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.

Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, stated, “After years of investigation, John Durham confirmed what we already knew: There was no grand conspiracy to frame Donald Trump.” He continued, “What we do know, from the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report and multiple independent investigations, is that Russia interfered in our elections in order to help Trump win.”

Durham’s report was highly critical of the FBI’s decision to investigate Trump and Russia, concluding that the agency did not find “any actual evidence of collusion” between the two and failed to take basic investigative steps before launching a yearslong probe. He indicted three people throughout his four-year investigation, leading to one guilty plea of a low-level FBI lawyer and two acquittals.

However, there are numerous reports from 2019 and 2020 showing both Durham and Barr sought to question CIA officials about their findings on Russian election interference in 2016. With the new grand jury investigation, it’s still not yet clear what allegations specifically Bondi wants prosecutors to probe or even who will be leading the investigation. The attorney general has not spoken publicly about the grand jury investigation. Last month, she announced a strike force to “investigate potential next legal steps which might stem from DNI Gabbard’s disclosures.”

Gabbard isn’t the only Trump official who has released documents and made criminal referrals related to Russia and the 2016 election. CIA Director John Ratcliffe also released a review of the intelligence community’s 2017 assessment last month that criticized the conclusion that Putin sought to help Trump.

Ratcliffe’s review said the conclusion on Putin was reached “through an atypical & corrupt process,” though it found “the overall assessment was deemed defensible.” Ratcliffe referred former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey to the Justice Department, which the department is also now investigating.

Trump’s allies have made much hay over the release last month of a redacted classified “annex” from Durham’s report they say shows evidence the Clinton campaign plotted to tie Trump to Russia and push the FBI to investigate the matter. However, the emails cited by Trump’s allies appear to be faked, according to Durham’s report. The newly released annex focuses in part on emails allegedly from Leonard Benardo at George Soros’ Open Society Foundations that the FBI determined at the time were not credible. Durham’s own “best assessment” of the emails cited in the memos is that they were a composite of emails stolen by Russian intelligence, meaning they were not genuine.