The recent disclosures by Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard of wrongdoing by the Intelligence Community (IC) and the White House at the end of the Obama administration are shocking. It would be an understatement to say they were the most important story of the year. These disclosures (and what will follow) are one of the most important stories in U.S. history.
Your editor with Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). I have extensive experience working with the Intelligence Community including the CIA and DNI. Director Gabbard is the first senior intelligence official willing to declassify relevant files and tell the truth about the Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama plot to destroy Trump
Observers cannot be blamed for yawning at that description. We’ve been hearing about this story since early in 2017, not long after Donald Trump was inaugurated for his first term. You know the outline.
The Background
The allegations at the time were that the CIA and FBI (part of the IC) used a dossier prepared by former MI6 agent Christopher Steele that indicated Trump was under the thumb of the Russian President Vladimir Putin. Steele was not just any agent. He was head of the Russia desk at MI6 headquarters in London. Supposedly, his Russian sources were quite solid.
The Steele dossier included salacious allegations about Trump. The theory was that Putin could use the material in the dossier to blackmail Trump. On that basis, Russia was said to have interfered in the U.S. election in 2016 to help Trump get elected. This would make the blackmail material more valuable.
With this as a starting point, the FBI went to the secret FISA court to get warrants to spy on the Trump campaign. In form, the warrants pertained to several Trump associates, but since those associates were speaking to the campaign, it was a backdoor way to spy on the campaign itself.
Although this plot failed to elect Hillary Clinton, it did prove useful in paralyzing the Trump administration for its first three years. Robert Mueller (a deep state former FBI head) was appointed to investigate Trump. After two years of investigations, they found nothing despite having practically unlimited resources.
Inspectors General at the CIA and Department of Justice later reviewed the Trump investigations (what Trump called the “witch hunt”) and found some procedural violations but no criminal wrongdoing by the government. Still later, U.S. Attorney John Durham did an exhaustive study. He also found some poor practices but no crimes. No one was indicted and no one was ever convicted except for low-level FBI agent Kevin Clinesmith, who was not sentenced to prison.
Echoes of the Russiagate allegations continued into 2019 when Trump was impeached for a simple phone call to President Zelensky of Ukraine (now the military dictator of Ukraine). The phone call allegedly showed that Trump was pro-Russian and that Russia was now interfering in the 2020 election. Following Trump’s defeat in the rigged 2020 election, the whole affair just seemed to go away.
But the allegations served their purpose. Trump’s motives were tainted and his first administration was paralyzed. The people behind this plot assumed that Trump was finished politically and would never be heard from again.
Well, he’s back.
The first thing to understand about this scandal is that everything written above is a lie. It is an accurate description of how events unfolded from 2016 to 2020, but the narrative around those events is a lie. DNI’s Tulsi Gabbard has just stood the entire narrative on its head.
We still don’t know all of the facts, although I expect we’ll find out soon. Gabbard did not do this with mere allegations of her own. She declassified thousands of pages of CIA and other IC files to back up her allegations.
Here’s The Real Story
The Steele dossier was commissioned by the Hillary Clinton campaign. But it was not designed to defeat Trump in 2016. That’s because no one seriously thought Trump would win. I was one of only a handful of people who predicted a Trump win. But the odds on Election Day were over 95% in Hillary’s favor.
The reason for the Steele dossier was to insulate Hillary from real blackmail. Putin had information from Hillary Clinton’s private server, which she used to send classified information even though the server was unsecured. The corrupt FBI Director James Comey gave Clinton a pass on this, but the Russians had the goods.
They knew that Hillary had Type-2 diabetes, COPD, suffered “intensified psycho-emotional problems”, was manic-depressive, and took large doses of “heavy tranquilizers” and other drugs. The combination of the server hacks and the medical reports were enough to put Hillary under Putin’s thumb.
The Steele dossier and the initial stages of the Trump investigation were designed to insulate Hillary from Russian blackmail. The assumption was that Hillary would win. If Putin tried to blackmail Hillary, the Steele dossier and the Trump dirt would be rolled out to show that Putin favored Trump and was lying about Hillary. The Trump dirt (which was made up) would be used to counter the Hillary dirt (which was real). It never occurred to anyone that Trump would actually win.
After the Trump victory in 2016, the Deep State went into a full panic. Suddenly, the Steele dossier would no longer be used to inoculate Hillary; it would be used to destroy Trump.
Up until December 2016, the IC had assessed that Russia did not interfere in the U.S. elections (except in some trivial ways on social media) and that Putin did not favor one candidate over the other. If anything, Putin favored Hillary slightly because he had blackmail information on her and none on Trump. This assessment was about to be included in the highly classified President’s Daily Brief (PDB), which is given to Obama. By December, the PDB was also being distributed to Trump because he was President-Elect.
An Obama Coup Attempt
At a secret meeting in the White House in December 2016, Obama ordered the IC Chiefs (including John Brennan (CIA) and James Clapper (DNI)) to halt the distribution of the PDB and revise the assessment to show that Russia did interfere in the U.S. election. James Comey of the FBI later received the same instructions. That revised assessment (which had no basis in fact) included the Steele dossier (which was completely false).
The new narrative was that Russia interfered to get Trump elected so it could use the dossier information to blackmail. This narrative was completely false but it served multiple purposes. It would rationalize Hillary’s loss and paralyze Trump. In those respects, the plan worked.
Here’s why the Tulsi Gabbard revelations are so important: The actions alleged are crimes. It was an attempted coup to overthrow Trump by paralyzing his administration and it was treasonous because it attempted to reverse the results of an election and negate the voice of the American people.
The coup was orchestrated from the top down. Many officials were involved, but the orders to reverse the original IC assessment came from Obama himself. The other officials involved in addition to Brennan, Clapper and Comey include Susan Rice, Sally Yates, Mary McCord, Lisa Monaco, Hillary Clinton, Andrew McCabe, and others. If some of those names are not well-known, they will be soon. Criminal referrals have been made, and indictments are expected.
Some analysts claim that Obama cannot be indicted because presidents have immunity from prosecution. Whether Obama has immunity under Trump v. United States (2024) turns on whether Obama’s role was or was not within the scope of his presidential duties under Article II of the Constitution. That’s unclear. Treason is not within the scope of a president’s duties. But you could argue that ordering a new intelligence assessment (however flawed) is within the scope. You’ll need witnesses or more documents to overcome a presumption in Obama’s favor.
In any event, a president does not have immunity for acts committed after his term is over. It’s unlikely Obama’s role in the conspiracy came to a complete halt on January 21, 2017. It’s too soon to reach a conclusion on this; more facts are needed.
What is clear is that none of Obama’s co-conspirators and henchmen have immunity. The decision in Trump v. United States says that immunity only applies to the president himself and not to other participants in the Executive Branch or agencies.
Events are moving quickly. Since grand jury proceedings are secret, it’s entirely possible that a grand jury has already been selected and is hearing evidence in real time. We wouldn’t know until they hand up indictments. The courthouse selected is in Florida but is a bit out of the way, so, not Palm Beach or Miami.
The prosecutor is a seasoned pro with a high IQ and a bulldog demeanor. Both the venue and the prosecutor will be announced in the coming days. Those looking for accountability will not be disappointed. Of course, we will keep you updated as we stay ahead of the mainstream news.
