Tulsi Gabbard ‘cannot fathom' how Durham, Mueller missed evidence of ‘years-long coup' against Trump
On Friday, Gabbard's team made public over 100 pages of memos, emails, and other material that revealed the Obama administration had quietly concluded Russia didn't impact the 2016 election's vote totals via cyberattacks.
Gabbard has cited those documents as evidence of a 'treasonous conspiracy' by the Obama administration to amplify 'manufactured intelligence that claims that Russia had helped' Trump win the election and called for former officials to be prosecuted.
'I really cannot fathom [it],' Gabbard told Fox News' 'Sunday Morning Futures' about why Durham and Mueller didn't highlight the evidence her team found. 'There is no rational or logical explanation for why they failed.'
'The only logical conclusion that I can draw in this … is that there was direct intent to cover up the truth about what occurred and who was responsible and the broad network of how this seditious conspiracy was concocted and who exactly was responsible for carrying it out.'
4 Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released documents last week that shed new light on Russiagate.
FOX NEWS
4 John Durham had eviscerated the FBI's handling of its Russia probe into the 2016 Trump campaign.
AP
The DNI refrained from explicitly accusing either Durham or Mueller of having the 'intent to cover up the truth.'
Among the stark findings Gabbard's team unearthed after months of investigation was a Sept. 12, 2016, Intelligence Community Assessment that 'foreign adversaries do not have and will probably not obtain the capabilities to successfully execute widespread and undetected cyber attacks' on election systems.
Intelligence officials at the time accused Russia of setting up troll farms and hacking the Democratic National Committee email servers and leaking information to the public. Russian cyber intruders also allegedly infiltrated the Republican National Committee but reportedly refrained from leaking that information.
Through the 2016 campaign and much of his first administration, a steady stream of leaks regarding Russiagate haunted Trump and led to the Mueller investigation, which concluded the Russians meddled in the 2016 election via propaganda and other means in a 'sweeping and systemic fashion.'
4 Robert Mueller ultimately found insufficient evidence that members of the 2016 Trump campaign were involved in a grand conspiracy revolving around Russia.
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The Mueller probe ultimately found insufficient evidence that any member of the 2016 Trump campaign had been 'taking part in a criminal conspiracy' revolving around Russia.
Towards the end of his first term, former US Attorney General Bill Barr appointed Durham to examine the origins of the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane investigation — the bureau's probe of links between Russia and the 2016 campaign — as well as the Mueller inquiry.
Durham wrapped up that review in 2023, which tore into the bureau's handling of the probe into Trump.
'I don't know what excuse there is for those who supposedly investigated this previously, whether it was Durham or others, that they were not able to put together the dots and ultimately show the truth to the American people,' the DNI added at another point.
Gabbard stressed that Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel will have to gather the evidence and decide whether to press charges.
Still, she vowed to do 'all that I can' to ensure accountability and argued in favor of prosecuting former intelligence officials involved.
'There must be indictments of those responsible, no matter how powerful they are and were at that time, no matter who was involved in creating this treasonous conspiracy against the American people. They all must be held accountable,' Gabbard declared.
4 Tulsi Gabbard has teased that more information on Russiagate is coming.
FOX NEWS
'For the American people to have any sense of trust in the integrity of our democratic republic, accountability, action, prosecution, [and] indictments for those who are responsible for trying to steal our democracy is essential for us to make sure that this never happens to our country again,' she later added.
The DNI, who oversees coordination between 18 intelligence agencies, teased that more information will be coming next week and that some whistleblowers are stepping forward because they are 'disgusted by what happened.'
'The effect of what President Obama and his senior national security team did was subvert the will of the American people, undermining our democratic republic, and enacting what would be essentially a years-long coup against President Trump,' Gabbard added.
Gabbard's public disclosures about the intelligence community's Russiagate machinations come weeks after speculation that there had been daylight between her and Trump over his decision to bomb Iran.
The DNI has historically been dovish on foreign policy and skeptical of elements of the intelligence community. Earlier this year, she testified that 'the IC [intelligence community] continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.'
She later argued that her words had been misconstrued by the media and pointed to another portion of her testimony where she warned about Iran's uranium enrichment levels.
Trump has been eager to revisit the Russiagate drama and had named Ed Martin to serve as the director of a Weaponization Working Group to tackle it and other similar matters.
Critics have argued that Gabbard has been trying to confuse the public by focusing on evidence that Russia didn't hack the 2016 election and glossing over evidence that the Kremlin tried to meddle in the election via other means, such as internet troll farms.
'What you saw from the DNI was not just a lie but a very dangerous lie,' Jim Himes (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, fumed to CBS News' 'Face the Nation' Sunday.
'The Senate committee then led by Marco Rubio found unanimously that Russia meddled in the election to try to assist Donald Trump,' he added. 'What Tulsi is doing is a sleight of hand.'
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