The intelligence community's abuse of power during and after the 2016 election was aimed at undermining then-candidate and later President Donald Trump, amounting to an "incredible injustice," Sen. Rand Paul, chair of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, told Newsmax on Tuesday.
Appearing on "The Chris Salcedo Show," the Kentucky Republican responded to questions about a newly released intelligence report disclosed by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, which she said shows evidence that officials under President Barack Obama manipulated intelligence following Trump's election to cast doubt on its legitimacy and suggest collusion with Russia.
"I've been surprised since the very beginning that this hasn't generated more of a firestorm," Paul said.
"Even from the very beginning, when it was happening — the end of 2016, early 2017. And there are reports that the Obama administration was sending out intelligence throughout the government to protect it from Donald Trump."
Paul said that after Trump's victory, intelligence assessments were deliberately altered.
"It turns out they were also fabricating and changing the intelligence," he said. "So the intelligence after the election in 2016 said, 'Oh, yeah, the Russians like always were dabbling here and there on Facebook, but they had really no impact on the election.'"
But that assessment shifted, Paul said, in an apparent effort to delegitimize Trump's presidency.
"When Trump won, they wanted to make it illegitimate. They wanted to cast aspersions. They wanted to make him an illegitimate president.
"So they concocted this whole thing. They changed the intelligence, changed the conclusion, and said, 'Oh, the Russians controlled the election. The Russians control Trump,'" he said.
"They used the entire apparatus of the intelligence agency against a major party's candidate and a major party's president. Can you imagine if this force were being used against an ordinary American citizen?
"This is the kind of thing libertarians, conservatives, small government people have been warning about for a long time: that the intelligence community has so much power that, put into the wrong hands, incredible injustice could occur," Paul said.
"And I think that's what happened here. I'm proud of Tulsi Gabbard for bringing it forward."
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Jim Thomas ✉
Jim Thomas is a writer based in Indiana. He holds a bachelor's degree in Political Science, a law degree from U.I.C. Law School, and has practiced law for more than 20 years.
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