Newly declassified emails revealed that in the final weeks of the Obama administration, then–Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told top officials they would have to “compromise on our ‘normal’ modalities” to complete the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment on Russian election interference, despite warnings from the National Security Agency director that analysts had not been given enough time or access to fully vet the intelligence.
The correspondence, revealed Wednesday by current National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard in a post on X, captures a rare internal clash at the highest levels of the intelligence community during the drafting of one of the most politically consequential reports in recent history, which led to years of unsubstantiated allegations by the press and political opponents of President Donald Trump that his 2016 campaign colluded with Russia.
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
Then-NSA Director Mike Rogers wrote to Clapper on Dec. 22, 2016, that his team was “not fully comfortable” endorsing the report’s conclusions without a complete review of the underlying evidence, cautioning that the rushed process could undermine the ability of all agencies to stand behind the document.
The 2017 ICA concluded that Russia interfered with the 2016 election with the specific intention of helping Trump win. However, documents declassified over the past several weeks by Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe show the Obama intelligence community had virtually no evidence to support that conclusion, which went on to underpin years of Democratic talking points.
Clapper responded that the timeline for completing the ICA was “not negotiable” and stressed that the CIA, FBI, NSA, and ODNI had to present a unified position in the final document.
“We may have to compromise on our ‘normal’ modalities,” Clapper wrote. “This is one project that has to be a team sport.”
Gabbard said the exchange reinforced her contention that the ICA was “manufactured” under political pressure to support a predetermined narrative about Trump and Russia during his first term.
Over the past several weeks, Gabbard has declassified a series of records showing how a small circle of senior Obama-era officials directed the assessment’s drafting while sidelining dissenting views from within the intelligence community.
The 2017 ICA also concluded that Russia was responsible for leaking emails from the Democratic National Committee and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, but internal assessments before and after the election indicated a lower level of confidence in that attribution and found it was “highly unlikely” any cyber activity could have altered vote counts.
The release comes as the Justice Department prepares to present evidence to a grand jury, which may examine whether Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan, former FBI Director James Comey, and other senior officials misrepresented the certainty of their conclusions and withheld contrary intelligence from Congress and the incoming Trump administration in 2017.
RUSSIAGATE DEFINITIVE TIMELINE: HOW NEW INTELLIGENCE DOCUMENTS FIT IN
It remains unclear which former officials might face scrutiny, where a grand jury could convene, or whether career prosecutors or political appointees would oversee a prosecution.
Based on Gabbard’s criminal referral, a federal prosecutor tasked with assembling the grand jury is likely to focus on whether the rush to finish the ICA, ordered by former President Barack Obama in early December 2016 and completed less than a month later, undermined its accuracy and integrity.