Clapper's well-timed pseudo-intelligence before presidential debates in 2016 and 2020 helped Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden cast Donald Trump as a potential Kremlin lackey.
Just before Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton faced off in their second presidential debate, then-National Intelligence Director James Clapper met in the White House with a small group of advisers to President Obama to hatch a plan to put out a first-of-its-kind intelligence report warning the voting public that "The Russian government" was interfering in the election by allegedly breaching the Clinton campaign's email system.
AP. On Oct. 7, 2016 - just two days before the presidential debate between Trump and Clinton - Clapper issued the unprecedented intelligence advisory with Obama's personal blessing.
In hindsight, Clapper's well-timed pseudo-intelligence in 2016 and 2020 helped Clinton and Biden make the case against Trump as a potentially Kremlin-compromised figure, charges that crippled his presidency and later arguably denied him reelection.
Added the former intel chief: "Jeh and I felt strongly that we should inform the electorate," and "President Obama assented." In doing so, Clapper confessed they "Pushed the boundaries" of what they could say about the purported "Russian activities." As much as they juiced the intel they agreed to stop short of blaming Putin directly.
On the same day that Clapper released the statement, then-Politico reporter Natasha Bertrand hyped it in a story with the conclusive headline: "Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say." During the earlier frenzied coverage of Russiagate, Bertrand, who now works for CNN, acted as a go-to reporter for leaks from intelligence officials about Trump.
The public learned from Tapper - via Clapper - that the U.S. Intelligence Community itself was focused on the Steele dossier, setting off allegations against Trump for years as if the dossier were the Pentagon Papers.
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