BOMBSHELL: Obama orchestrated Russiagate collusion hoax, says Tulsi Gabbard

The Hill

4 days ago

Big news breaking over the weekend: In the final days of his presidency, Barack Obama pushed intelligence officials to exaggerate the evidence for Russian malfeasance in the 2016 presidential election and collusion with the Trump campaign.
That's according to current Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. She has released documents from that time period that she says prove the existence of a 'treasonous' plot to undermine President Trump and persuade the public that there was something illegitimate about his victory in 2016.
Here is Gabbard explaining the details of that plot on Fox News over the weekend: 'Over a hundred documents that we released, on Friday, really detail and provide evidence of how this treasonous conspiracy was directed by President Obama, just weeks before he was due to leave office after President Trump had already gotten elected. This is not a Democrat or Republican issue, this is an issue that is so serious it should concern every single American, because it has to do with the integrity of our democratic republic.'
Gabbard continues: 'What we saw occur here, as the documents we released detail, was that we had a sitting president of the United States and his Cabinet and leadership team, quite frankly who were not happy with the fact that President Trump had won the election, that the American people had chosen Donald J. Trump to be the next president and commander-in-chief of the United States. And so they decided that they would do everything possible to try to undermine his ability to do what voters tasked President Trump to do.'
Gabbard's key finding is this: In December of 2016, after Trump had won the presidential election, intelligence officials prepared an assessment that found that Russia did not have the capability to affect the outcome of the election — that is, Russia did not hack voting machines or have some power to actually change the result. This assessment, however, was withdrawn, pulled back 'based on new guidance.'
That was on Dec. 8. The very next day, according to the documents released by Gabbard, top intelligence officials including James Comey and John Brennan and James Clapper all convened at the White House, where President Obama himself directed them to reach stronger conclusions about Russian election meddling. (If you're confused, here's a helpful summary from journalist Matt Taibbi. )
In sum, just before Obama was to receive a briefing that contained no reference to significant Russian interference, the briefing was called off and a high-level meeting of White House security officials was convened, after which Obama himself tasked them with a new assessment that would lean toward a more aggressive conclusion. Although this new effort was to be directed by Clapper's office, the critical job of divining Russia's motives would be given to the CIA and Brennan.
It's suspicious that a Presidential Daily Briefing was postponed to make way for an intelligence community assessment ordered at Obama's request, and fishier yet that the evidence Vladimir Putin intended to help Trump came from a classified annex containing Steele dossier material, but the smoking gun is that these eventual conclusions leaked instantly — not one or two weeks after Obama ordered the assessment but the same day, before any group work could possibly have been done.
Indeed, the most egregious part of all this is that the mainstream media instantly went nuts with Russiagate fervor. That same day, The New York Times reported that 'Russian Hackers Acted to Aid Trump in Election,' citing senior administration officials and intelligence sources. The Washington Post ran with similar sensational claims.
What followed was two years of constant fearmongering in the media over Trump's alleged fealty to Putin. It was insinuated over and over again that Trump's policies toward Russia were directed by Putin, that Putin had him over a barrel, it was a kickback for influencing the election on his behalf.
Much later, of course, the public learned that Russian efforts to affect the outcome of the 2016 election were not particularly impressive. They did not hack voting machines, and their influence operation on social media amounted to very little. No evidence emerged that the Trump campaign coordinated with the Russian government.
We know all this already. But what Gabbard's latest revelations show is that senior intelligence officials also knew this — and they knew it all the way back in 2016. That was their conclusion: Russian influence was not a very big threat. That was the truth. Unfortunately, the truth wasn't salacious enough for the mainstream media, and it wasn't politically useful as a weapon against Trump for outgoing President Obama.
I don't like to lightly throw around the word treason, and without further investigation, I would certainly not use such a term. However, I've been repeatedly informed by liberals and Democrats and members of the media that undermining public confidence in the outcome of a presidential election is a very serious transgression (at least when Trump does it). Will we now be treated to thunderous denunciation of Obama and his coterie of intelligence officials for encouraging the media to gleefully report that something just wasn't adding it up when it came to Trump's 2016 win?
I think I'll be holding my breath on that one.