Is a reckoning at least on the horizon for the perpetrators of the Russian collusion hoax that dominated the news cycle for months after the 2016 general election? Somehow, the most senior government officials are almost never forced to answer for their transgressions. But the Department of Justice (DOJ) appears ready to put the actions of certain Obama-era figures under a microscope. That may even include the former president himself. On July 23, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the creation of a “strike force” that will “assess the evidence publicized by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and investigate potential next legal steps which might stem from DNI Gabbard’s disclosures.”
DNI Gabbard made a criminal referral to the DOJ, stemming from what has been revealed in documents from the final weeks of the Obama administration. At the July 23 White House press briefing, Gabbard, a former Democratic representative for Hawaii, told reporters, “There is irrefutable evidence that details how President Barack Obama and his national security team directed the creation of an intelligence community assessment that they knew was false.” She continued:
“They knew it would promote this contrived narrative that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help President Trump win, selling it to the American people as though it were true. It wasn’t. The report that we released today shows in great detail how they carried this out. They manufactured findings from shoddy sources, they suppressed evidence and credible intelligence that disproved their false claims, they disobeyed traditional trade-craft intelligence community standards and withheld the truth from the American people.”
That was just background, however. Gabbard went on to directly level the accusation that then-President Obama and his top intelligence officials “conspired to subvert the will of the American people who elected Donald Trump in that election in November of 2016.” The director further asserted that the ultimate aim was to “undermine the legitimacy of President Trump” and that, by their actions, they launched a “years-long coup against [Trump] and his administration.”
Russian Collusion Unraveling
The Russian collusion story was based on a very weak premise to begin with. It has always seemed rather curious that Russian President Vladimir Putin would have wanted Trump, rather than Hillary Clinton, to become the next president of the United States. The latter was, to Putin, a known quantity – and therefore predictable. Donald Trump was not and had campaigned on a no-nonsense America First agenda. Surely, Putin, if he had any preference at all, would have preferred to deal with Clinton.
As Director Gabbard revealed, the Russians were assuming Clinton was going to win. They had compromising health-related information about the former secretary of state and were apparently holding that back to use against her in the event of what they believed was her likely victory. The Russians also supposedly had information on “possible criminal acts” dating back to Clinton’s time as secretary of state.
Perhaps most damning, the DNI described how Obama convened a secret meeting with his national security council in December of 2016. Immediately after that meeting, an assistant to then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper sent out an email to the intelligence community (IC). The subject line of that email read: “POTUS tasking on Russia election meddling.”
Obama Implicated
This certainly appears to prove that Obama himself directed elements of the IC to compile an intelligence assessment crafted specifically to promote the Russian collusion story, even though all IC findings concluded that Russia had neither the ability nor the intent to influence the outcome of the election.
That’s not to say the Russians did nothing to mess with American voters in 2016. It is known that a Russian entity did take out some Facebook ads and also promoted both anti-Clinton and anti-Trump demonstrations in the lead-up to the election. But the Russians did not affect the election itself – and that fact is almost universally accepted.
There was simply no reason to hastily craft an Intelligence Community Assessment, include in it the Russian collusion narrative – even though everyone involved knew it had no basis in fact – and release the document in January of 2017. No reason, that is, other than to plant the seed that Trump’s election victory was illegitimate and that Trump himself might be a Russian asset – or at least compromised by Moscow.
Announcing the DOJ strike force of investigators and prosecutors who specialize in cases of various forms of fraud, Attorney General Bondi said in a statement: “The Department of Justice is proud to work with my friend Director Gabbard and we are grateful for her partnership in delivering accountability for the American people. We will investigate these troubling disclosures fully and leave no stone unturned to deliver justice.”
Of course, unlike how Democrats and progressives pursued President Trump, it is not proper to demand that people go to prison. There is still due process, and crimes must be proven. Still, the DOJ will be under pressure to fully investigate what may be a far greater political scandal than the Watergate Hotel affair. If nobody is truly held to account when the dust settles, what little faith most Americans have in their government could disappear altogether.
