This week, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released a once-classified House Intelligence Committee report that sheds new light on the 2016 election and what foreign intelligence services—particularly Russia’s SVR (Foreign Intelligence Service)—knew about the Democratic Party’s inner workings.
A newly declassified report reveals Russia had access to secret DNC information about Hillary Clinton’s health. The intel claimed Clinton was suffering from psychological and physical ailments—kept hidden from even her own advisors. Obama and Democratic leaders reportedly found her condition “extraordinarily alarming,” fearing it would damage her election chances.
These findings, previously redacted, raise fresh questions about what Russia knew—and why they withheld it during the 2016 race. While much of the 2016 Russia-related discourse focused on the alleged ties between Donald Trump and Moscow, the newly unredacted sections suggest that Russia had obtained damaging information about Hillary Clinton—but chose not to leak it. According to the report, by September 2016, Russian intelligence had successfully accessed Democratic National Committee (DNC) communications that revealed internal concerns about Hillary Clinton’s mental and physical health.
The key findings included:
- Obama-era panic: The report claims that President Obama and senior Democratic leaders were alarmed by Clinton’s deteriorating health, calling it “extraordinarily alarming” and believing it posed a “serious negative impact” on her campaign. This concern, it states, was kept in “strictest secrecy,” with even top campaign advisors kept in the dark.
- Psychological condition: Russian SVR sources allegedly accessed DNC documents describing Clinton as suffering from “intensified psycho-emotional problems,” including:
- Uncontrolled fits of anger, aggression, and cheerfulness
- A dependency on “heavy tranquilizers”
- A mindset “obsessed with a thirst for power”
- Physical health ailments: The report cites SVR knowledge that Clinton had:
- One of the most startling revelations is that Russia chose not to leak the most damaging information it had about Clinton—despite later being accused of favouring Trump. Analysts now suggest the Kremlin may have expected a Clinton victory and refrained from leaking health-related details that could backfire diplomatically. Another possibility: Russia intended to retain that information as post-election leverage.
The original report was compiled by the House Intelligence Committee during the Trump administration. However, much of it remained classified or heavily redacted during both the Biden and Obama years. Tulsi Gabbard, now serving as DNI under President Trump, authorised its full release, citing transparency and the “right of the public to know what really happened in 2016.” The revelations add to a growing narrative that the Russia-Trump collusion story was selectively told, with key pieces of context deliberately withheld.
At the heart of the controversy lies a question with global implications: If Russia had more damaging information about Clinton than Trump—why did American intelligence, media, and political leadership build an entire election scandal around the latter? The new disclosures also:
- Undermine the Steele Dossier’s credibility, already widely discredited
- Suggest that foreign adversaries had deeper visibility into Democratic infighting than previously acknowledged
- Put renewed scrutiny on how Obama-era officials handled intelligence dissemination
So far, Hillary Clinton has not issued a statement responding to the newly released material. Her team has previously described health-related rumours as “baseless right-wing conspiracy theories.” However, the newly cited DNC internal communications appear to show private admissions that contradict public denials. This is no longer just a debate about emails or hacked servers. The declassified House report paints a picture of:
- A Democratic Party deeply divided and alarmed about its nominee’s health
- A foreign power with access to that panic
- And a narrative that may have been shaped more by politics than truth