I guess I don't see the contradiction between the three segments of Clapper's transcript that you posted.
One question had to do with the credibility of the electoral process. I think Putin absolutely succeeded in undermining the credibility of the electoral process. Trump himself made allegations that the electoral process was "rigged" and that also contributed to a belief by some Republicans that the electoral process was flawed. He stated on several occasions that "millions of people" voted twice in California, or that "millions" of illegal immigrants voted in California and other states. Those claims have never been proven.
We know that Russian disinformation campaigns frequently highlighted Trump's pre-election statements that the election "is rigged" and after the election those disinfo campaigns frequently amplified Trump's claims that millions of illegal ballots were cast. Does that not undermine the credibility of the election process?
I'd also point out the hard evidence we have that the Russians used a variety of social media and on-the-ground organizing tactics to try to suppress the votes of certain electoral groups. Additionally, would you not agree that the Russian hacking of the voter registration systems of multiple states (even though there's no proof data was changed or deleted) impacting the credibility of the election process?
I don't know about state processes, but if a system is hacked in my industry, we're required to immediately report that incident to the DoD, provide DoD with an untouched forensic image, and the assumption is that data was exfiltrated or modified until explicitly proven otherwise (in some cases, logging, auditing, and backups aren't enough to prove data integrity). DoD would absolutely consider such a system to have been compromised, and would definitely have major credibility concerns about the integrity of related data and systems.
What about the "Resistance" Democrats who believe the Russians actually changed votes/data and are convinced that Russia's efforts stole the election from Hillary. Is that not an example of undermining the credibility of the election process?
Clapper later says they didn't have any evidence the Russians changed votes. I don't see how that is inconsistent with the other statement that Putin undermined the credibility of electoral processes. In 2020, there are still millions of Americans who believe the electoral process was tainted irrespective of whether or not vote tallies were changed. I thought it was well-known that there was no evidence that vote systems had tallies or info changed. Mueller's report also said that well before the transcripts were released.
I guess the confusing/confounding part to me is why we would expect Clapper, Rice, or any of the Obama Admin people to have had explicit evidence of the Trump campaign's activities (or lack thereof) with Russia. I believe the vast majority of investigatory steps, interviews, review, and the investigations themselves came after Trump was sworn in. Those individuals wouldn't have any evidence or information past the point at which they left the government.
