New disclosures from the government’s “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation into the 2016 election, otherwise known as alleged “Trump-Russia collusion,” have revealed a stunning admission from top Obama-era officials.
A newly declassified memo, released Friday by Director of Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, shows that U.S. intelligence officials concluded Russia did not play a significant role in Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton. The document is the clearest proof yet that officials inside the Obama administration had serious doubts about Russian interference, even as they pressed forward with the investigation anyway.
The memo, dated 2016, told then-President Barack Obama directly that “Russian and criminal actors did not impact recent US election results by conducting malicious cyber activities against election infrastructure.”
While it acknowledges prior reporting about a possible breach of Illinois voter rolls and failed targeting attempts in other states, the memo clearly states that those efforts never touched voting systems—and didn’t come close to altering results.
