WASHINGTON, January 31. /TASS/. US President Donald Trump’s political opponents misused the US intelligence community to falsely portray him as a puppet of the Russian government, Trump’s nominee for Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said.
"The American people elected Donald Trump as their president, but the FBI and Intelligence agencies were politicized by his opponents to undermine his presidency and falsely portray him as a puppet of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin," she said during confirmation hearings at the Senate of the US Congress.
She cited it as an example of how "faulty, inadequate, or weaponized intelligence have led to costly failures and the undermining of our national security and God-given freedoms enshrined in the Constitution."
"The most obvious example is our invasion of Iraq based upon a total fabrication or complete failure of ‘intelligence,’" she said, adding that currently, "trust in the intelligence community is at an all-time low."
US intelligence agencies accused Russia of meddling in the American electoral campaign in 2016. These alleged interference attempts were investigated by former FBI Director and special prosecutor Robert Mueller. On April 18, 2019, the US Department of Justice published the final report, in which Mueller admitted that he was unable to reveal a collusion between Donald Trump and Russia. Trump repeatedly denied all allegations of improper contacts with Russian officials during the election campaign; Moscow also repeatedly denied all allegations of trying to influence the elections process in the US.