"Nothing in her document even shows that Obama tried to put his finger on the scale on either the information leak conclusion or the election infrastructure' conclusion," University of Missouri law professor Frank O. Bowman III said.
"And even if he had, that would not be a coup.' Or indeed a crime of any kind."
Gabbard twisted Obama-era officials' statements to spin a dubious narrative that conflicts with multiple reviews that found evidence of Russian interference.
In a statement to PolitiFact, Obama spokesperson Patrick Rodenbush said, "Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes.
These findings were affirmed in a 2020 report by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, led by then-Chairman Marco Rubio," who is now Trump's secretary of state."
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"Gabbard's summary "hits on an issue that was not ultimately the focus of those analyses," said Bradley Moss, a national security lawyer in Washington, D.C. "No one has ever concluded the Russians flipped actual votes, and for good reason: There is no evidence of that."
Trump's statements ignore that government investigations found that Russia interfered with the election, including Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the bipartisan Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
The committee's 2020 nearly 1,000-page report concluded that "the Russian government engaged in an aggressive, multi-faceted effort to influence, or attempt to influence, the outcome of the 2016 presidential election."
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"Trump distorted a review from Gabbard that does not support his point. Gabbard pointed to a decision in December 2016 to hold off on giving Obama a daily intelligence brief that Russian actors did not influence election results via cyberattacks.
The records show Obama then sought assessment by the intelligence community about Russian interference in the 2016 election, with a look backward and ahead into Russia's capabilities.
But that assessment after the election did not conclude that Russia flipped votes, and intelligence experts said there was nothing unusual or nefarious about Obama's request.
In 2016 and early 2017, Obama acknowledged that his party lost the election and facilitated the transition to Trump's presidency.
We rate this statement Pants on Fire!"
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