New Delhi, July 24 -- Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard ignited a political firestorm on Wednesday (July 23), alleging that former President Barack Obama and his national security team engineered a "contrived narrative" that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election to aid Donald Trump.

"There is irrefutable evidence that details how President Obama and his national security team directed the creation of an intelligence community assessment that they knew was false," Gabbard said during a tense White House press briefing. "They knew it would promote this contrived narrative. selling it to the American people as though it were true. It wasn't."

Gabbard's claims follow the release of newly declassified intelligence...