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Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard stated that Russia sought to sow chaos during the 2016 election and had anticipated a Hillary Clinton victory, according to an interview published Sunday by the New York Post.<\/p>\n
Gabbard shared her assessment during a conversation with the Post\u2019s Miranda Devine on the \u201cPod Force One\u201d podcast, set to be released Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs we\u2019ve learned in later documents that we\u2019ve reviewed throughout that campaign, Russia believed that Hillary Clinton would win the election,\u201d Gabbard said. \u201cThey felt it was inevitable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Russia was accused of hacking the Democratic National Committee\u2019s (DNC) emails in 2016, and an ODNI memo released in July stated, \u201csupporting evidence [indicates] the Russian government directed hacking of the DNC and the [Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee].\u201d<\/p>\n
In the interview, Gabbard questioned why the Kremlin would have waited until after the election to release damaging information about Hillary Clinton if their primary goal was to see Donald Trump elected.<\/p>\n
She referred to a recently published 2020 House Intelligence Committee report, which revealed Russia potentially had intelligence demonstrating Clinton was using \u201cheavy tranquilizers\u201d to address \u201cintensified psycho-emotional problems, including uncontrolled fits of anger, aggression, and cheerfulness.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gabbard then openly questioned why that report wasn\u2019t publicly released.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Russia aspired to help Trump get elected, which is what the manufactured January 2017 intelligence community assessment says with high confidence, according to Brennan and Clapper, then Putin would have released the most damaging information and emails to help President Trump,\u201d Gabbard told Devine.<\/p>\n