A former CIA officer who helped investigate Russian election interference denied Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s claim that the Obama administration cooked up intelligence on Russia to undermine Trump’s 2016 election win.
Susan Miller, a 39-year CIA veteran, was one of three officers commissioned to assemble the 2019 Mueller report, also known as the “Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election.” In investigating “sound” intelligence on inference claims, Miller told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that they were simply directed to “look at the data.”
“Did anyone from the president, the CIA director at the time—anyone—did anyone tell you what conclusion to receive, to reach, when you [were] putting this report together?” she asked.
“Absolutely not,” said Miller, who has served nine times overseas in the CIA before becoming the agency’s chief of counterintelligence.
If there had been any pressure, Miller said she would have promptly resigned. She added, “And I can guarantee, the other three members of my team would have quit too. They are just righteous people.”
Responding to the Trump administration’s praise of Gabbard and the dismissal of the Mueller report’s findings as a “total hoax,” Miller called it “wrong in every single way.”
“What Tulsi is saying is we only want to hear anything that’s pro-Trump, pro-Trump policy, pro-this, pro-current Republican Party, from any of our intel services. And if we hear anything that’s not that? Then we’re going to come after you,” Miller said. “We looked at everything, and we’re being now told that we somehow did it wrong.”
Gabbard released a report on July 18 claiming that the Obama administration manufactured the “Russia hoax,” calling it a “treasonous conspiracy.” When the impact of that report seemed to fizzle in MAGA’s social circles, the intelligence director followed up with a series of infographics on social media that seemed to cast more confusion over her claims.
Despite a scathing rebuke from former President Obama himself, Gabbard has since tripled down on her claims. Speaking to reporters at the White House on Wednesday, she told reporters who questioned inconsistencies in her report that they were doing a “disservice” to America.
Notably, Gabbard’s “evidence” contradicts a massive bipartisan 2020 Senate Intelligence Committee report that came to the same conclusion as the Mueller report, finding that Russia had “engaged in an aggressive, multi-faceted effort to influence, or attempt to influence, the outcome of the 2016 presidential election” in Trump’s favor.
Miller explained the impetus behind the Russia investigation in the Friday interview.
“We received some information that was corroborated that the Russians were trying to influence the election on the part of—on the part of Trump—towards Trump, towards the Republican Party and Trump,” Miller said. “We took it very seriously, because Russians meddling in our election process is a pretty ugly thing to do, and we have to assess it and look at it.”
After the assessment, “We could determine that, 100 percent, the Russians were trying to influence the election. And we wrote the paper, basically saying that,” Miller said.
However, Miller said what they could not determine was how successful the efforts were.
“Unless we poll every voter as to why they voted, we can’t tell you if that worked. And therefore, from our perspective, Trump is our President. And we just left it at that,” said Miller.
The Daily Beast has contacted White House representatives for a response to Miller’s statements.
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