Susan Miller says US intelligence chief’s allegations were based on misrepresentations of discoveries made by her team about Russian actions
A former CIA officer who helped lead the intelligence assessments over alleged Russia interference in the 2016 presidential election has said Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, is ignorant of the practices of espionage after she accused Barack Obama and his national security team of “treasonous conspiracy” against Donald Trump.
Susan Miller, the agency’s head of counter-intelligence at the time of the election, told the Guardian that Gabbard’s allegations were based on false statements and basic misrepresentations of discoveries made by Miller’s team about Russian actions, which she insisted that were based on multiple trusted and verified sources.
Gabbard has accused Obama and his former national security officials of “manufacturing” intelligence to make it appear that Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, had intervened on Trump’s side when they knew it was untrue. The goal, she insisted, was to make Trump’s election win appear illegitimate, thus laying the basis of a “years-long coup against him”.
She has passed the matter to Pam Bondi, the attorney general, who last week announced a justice department “strike force” into the affair. However, reports have suggested that Bondi was caught off guard by Gabbard’s request that her department examine the matter.
