Journalists debunk claim that Putin favored Trump over Clinton in 2016
3 Min Read
The investigation revealed that Russian President Vladimir Putin actually favored Clinton over Trump.
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Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump listens as Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton answers a question during the second presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis, Sunday, Oct. 9, 2016 (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
On Thursday, journalists Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi, and Alex Gutentag reported that the US intelligence community fabricated claims suggesting that Russian President Vladimir Putin favored Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 US presidential election.
In January 2017, an Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) released by the US Director of National Intelligence suggested that Putin preferred Trump to win the election.
WMD, Part II: CIA "Cooked The Intelligence" To Hide That Russia Favored Clinton, Not Trump In 2016https://t.co/sTUGiGdsRx
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) February 15, 2024
Russia didn't fear Hillary Clinton. “It was a relationship they were comfortable with,” some CIA analysts believed, but intelligence was suppressed. On the… pic.twitter.com/pE87LwE5vr
However, after a thorough investigation, the journalists found that the authors of the assessment fabricated intelligence regarding this claim.
The information was sourced from people close to a House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia scandal.
The report further states that the release of the HPSCI investigation findings is being obstructed.
Putin preferred Clinton
According to the report, evidence suggests that Putin actually favored Clinton over Trump.
House investigators discovered that US intelligence analysts possessed information indicating that Russians considered Trump to be unreliable and unsteady.
In contrast, intelligence indicated that Russians viewed Clinton as manageable and likely to continue existing US policies.
The report further notes that former CIA Director John Brennan spearheaded the effort to portray Trump as Putin's preferred candidate in the ICA.
The HPSCI investigation concluded that the intelligence community conducted the assessment for political motives.
Read more: FBI created dashboard to mislabel Twitter users as Russian bots
Trump unpredictable
On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin characterized his US counterpart, Joe Biden, as being more "predictable" compared to Donald Trump, but asserted that the Kremlin is ready to collaborate with whoever emerges as the victor in November's election.
When asked by a journalist about Russia's preference between the likely contesting candidates, the Democratic incumbent and Republican frontrunner Trump, Putin stated: "Biden, he's more experienced. He's predictable, he's an old-school politician."
Putin dismissed inquiries regarding Biden's age and health, even though the president is set to turn 82 just weeks after the election.
"When I met Mr Biden three years ago, it's true, people were already talking about his inabilities, but I saw nothing of the sort," said Putin, evidently referring to a summit in Geneva.
Polls in the US indicate that voters have significant concerns about Biden's age.
Read more: Trump to 'encourage' Russia to attack NATO states for not paying bills
Following the 2016 election campaign, federal agencies investigated former President Trump for potential connections between his aides and Russia. Both Trump and Russia denied any collusion allegations.
A four-year investigation by US Special Counsel Robert Mueller into these claims failed to uncover evidence of a criminal conspiracy.
Subsequently, US Special Counsel John Durham's investigation concluded that the FBI should not have initiated the probe into the collusion allegations.
