WASHINGTON (AP) President Barack Obama was briefed in the summer of 2016 about an unverified Russian intelligence analysis that claimed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was then the Democratic presidential nominee, approved an effort to tie candidate Donald Trump to Russia’s hack of the Democratic National Committee, the nation’s top spy chief revealed on Tuesday.

A one-page letter Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe sent to and released by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham said U.S. intelligence agencies obtained, in late July 2016, “insight into Russian intelligence analysis alleging that U.S. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had approved a campaign plan to stir up a scandal against U.S. Presidential candidate Donald Trump by tying him to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and the Russians’ hacking of the Democratic National Committee.” But, Ratcliffe stressed, the intelligence community “does not know the accuracy of this allegation or the extent to which the Russian intelligence analysis may reflect exaggeration or fabrication.”

The release of this information, just hours before the first debate between Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden and one day before former FBI Director James Comey testifies before Graham’s committee, was met with instant condemnation by Democrats in Congress.

“It’s very disturbing to me that 35 days before an election, a director of national intelligence would release unverified Russian rumint,” Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, told reporters.

“This is Russian disinformation,” Rachel Cohen, the communications director for Warner, tweeted. “Laundered by the Director Of National Intelligence and Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. This is extraordinary.” Cohen did not immediately respond to the Washington Examiner’s question about what she was basing her claim on and whether any intelligence assessment existed concluding this was Russian disinformation.

Ratcliffe released a statement to the Washington Examiner less than two hours after Graham unveiled his letter to address the backlash. “To be clear, this is not Russian disinformation and has not been assessed as such by the intelligence community. I’ll be briefing Congress on the sensitive sources and methods by which it was obtained in the coming days,” he said.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, did not immediately respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.

“This latest information provided by DNI Ratcliffe shows there may have been a double standard by the FBI regarding allegations against the Clinton campaign and Russia,” Graham said on Tuesday. “Whether these allegations are accurate is not the question. The question is did the FBI investigate the allegations against Clinton like they did Trump? If not, why not? If so, what was the scope of the investigation? If none, why was that?”

Ratcliffe’s letter said that handwritten notes by former CIA Director John Brennan show he briefed Obama and other top national security officials on the Russian intelligence, including the “alleged approval by Hillary Clinton on July 26, 2016 of a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisors to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services.”

Nick Shapiro, the former deputy chief of staff to Brennan, told the Washington Examiner that “Russian interference in the election was real, intense, and unprecedented in scale and scope. It was authorized personally by Putin to hurt Secretary Clinton and to promote the electoral prospects of Donald Trump. The intelligence on this is incontrovertible and the analysis unimpeachable.” He added: “DNI Ratcliffe should be ashamed of his blatant politicization of his position.” Shapiro did not answer the Washington Examiner’s question about whether the CIA or the intelligence community at large had assessed the veracity of the Russian intelligence analysis revealed by Ratcliffe.

Ratcliffe, a former Republican member of the House Intelligence Committee who became director of national intelligence in late May, said that U.S. intelligence officials also forwarded an investigative referral to Comey and then-Deputy Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Peter Strzok on Sept. 7, 2016, regarding “U.S. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s approval of a plan concerning U.S. Presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian hackers hampering U.S. elections as a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server.”

Ratcliffe noted that Attorney General William Barr “has advised that the disclosure of this information will not interfere with ongoing Department of Justice investigations” and told Graham that “additional declassification and public disclosure of related intelligence remains under consideration; however, the IC welcomes the opportunity to provide a classified briefing with further detail at your convenience.”

Clinton spokesperson Nick Merrill told Politico that the claims were “baseless bullshit.”

“I appreciate DNI Ratcliffe responding to my request for any information concerning all things Russia in the 2016 campaign, not just alleged Trump-Russia involvement,” Graham said in a statement. “Director Ratcliffe will make this information available in a classified setting. I will try to review the material as early as today.”

The South Carolina Republican added: “I look forward to speaking with Director Comey about this latest information, and many other topics, at tomorrow’s hearing.”

After a two-year investigation, former special counsel Robert Mueller released a report in April 2019 that said his team “identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign” and that the Russians interfered in the 2016 election in a “sweeping and systematic fashion.” However, Mueller wrote that his team “did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government.”

As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Graham is leading an investigation into Crossfire Hurricane, the code name of the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia that was later wrapped into Mueller’s investigation.