The big news in last ten days—I mean other than the allegation that Donald Trump wrote a raunchy birthday card (maybe) to Jeffrey Epstein once—was a newly declassified report released by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard that fingers former DNI James Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey among others in the Obama Administration, and later in the Trump Administration, as having deliberately “manipulated and withheld” key intelligence from the public in order to advance the hoax that there was Russian interference in the 2016 election with the collusion of Donald Trump.
Gabbard said she would provide all related documents to the Justice Department “to deliver the accountability that President [Donald] Trump, his family, and the American people deserve…No matter how powerful, every person involved in this conspiracy must be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, to ensure nothing like this ever happens again.” She said she was releasing information that showed a “treasonous conspiracy in 2016” by top Obama administration officials, including Obama.
Is this true? The entire conservative “alternate media” is convinced it is, and that Barack Obama was at the center of the operation. This article by The American Thinker represents the consensus; there are many more. Here’s Breitbart (of course). This is Sarah Arnold at Townhall:
Despite no credible evidence, former President Barack Obama and his team worked to manipulate the Russia collusion narrative, which deliberately subverted the democratic process and the voters’ will. After President Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016, the Obama administration took it upon themselves to weaponize the intelligence community to push a false narrative designed to delegitimize and overturn Trump’s victory.
That’s not what the public is being told by the Axis media, however. Politico says, “The administration has routinely targeted critics of the president and has sought to relitigate the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. The president has repeatedly criticized former intelligence officials for their efforts to probe the Kremlin’s possible attempts to interfere in American politics, with Trump accusing Comey of leading a “corrupt and vicious witch hunt’”’ against him.” See? It’s just Trump’s revenge! The New York Times spin was to rely on Senator Mark Warner’s furious denunciation of the report and to frame the story as just “the latest in a series of reports from the Trump administration attempting to undermine the eight-year-old assessment that Russia favored the election of Donald J. Trump in 2016,” or, as the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank called Hunter Biden’s laptop, “a nothing burger.”
What’s going on here? I have no idea and neither do you, because our journalism sucks, is untrustworthy, lies, spins and has no interest in telling a story with political implications straight. Fox News brought on a well-known legal expert to explain what was going on and he sounded reasonable. He said that Gabbard was exaggerating and hyping the report, implying that she was unprofessional. It sure sounded that way to me: she called for the Obama officials to be “investigated,” but already has decided that they should be prosecuted. That’s hackery, but it is also what one gets when a an angry ex-Democrat is appointed to a job in national intelligence that she really isn’t qualified for. The expert said that the new information certainly should be thoroughly investigated, but that Hanlon’s Razor could apply: the Obama team might have been incompetent and stupid, not malign.
This is useful perspective, except that the legal expert is John Yoo, the same man who famously argued in a legal memo that waterboarding isn’t torture. I wouldn’t trust him to name the day of the week.
If I allowed confirmation bias to take over, I could easily side with Gabbard. As readers here may recall, I was suspicious early on of the Trump-Russia collusion narrative, and it cost me about half my readers here, the early sufferers of Trump Derangement syndrome, not one of whom has had the decency to come back and say, “Okay, you were right, and bravo for staying objective despite having made it quite clear that you hated the idea of Trump becoming President.” I also believe that Barack Obama was (and is) a devious proto-totalitarian and absolutely capable of over-seeing a plot to undermine Trump. But being an American citizen shouldn’t require having to choose, guess and puzzle out who to believe with every single news event.
I resent it, I’m sick of it, and I wish I knew how to fix it. Warring propaganda is not journalism. The Founders were right that a free press was essential to a healthy democracy, but they should have also made it clear that a free press than can’t be trusted is a detriment, not a boon.
Ethics Alarms 
To assume Hanlon’s razor when it comes to Comey, Brennan, Clapper, as well as Obama, Rice and many others which includes Lisa Monaco suggesting incompetence and stupidity but not malign intent would mean that you have to live in fairy tale land. These are some of the most legally savvy and devious individuals in government.
If I recall correctly, it was Comey who smugly said something to the effect that he sent in agents during the transition in late 2016 because he knew the incoming (Trump) team would be vulnerable unlike other seasoned politicians and he could get away with it. Comey was the leak to a friend who passed the information on to the NY Times or Washington Post. It has also been proven that Comey and Brennan made sure that they briefed Trump on the existence of the Steele dossier in order for it to become public. Moreover it was the Steele dossier paid for by the Clinton campaign as the “new evidence” they discussed as the rationale for the continued campaign about Russian interference and collusion with Trump. We also know that Obama had been briefed before this that the Clinton’s were hatching a plan to smear Trump as a Russian asset.
Gabbard’s words may be accurate or hyperbole but there is no doubt that the Obama and Biden administrations and their surrogates have taken unprecedented actions to resist the will of the people when it comes to Trump.
My observation is that the initial reports failed to give adequate cover for HRC’s loss in 2016. Russia is an easy scapegoat and it is entirely plausible for Russia to meddle in our elections like the United States does in other countries political processes. Therefore, having the Steele dossier gave the outgoing administration the requisite predicate for undertaking the expanded investigation into Russian meddling after other evidence stated that Russian did not change a single vote using cyber capabilities. This expanded investigation while on its face would be appropriate it had the benefit of tying Trump up with innuendo, speculation and carefully crafted narratives promoted by the press.
The question isn’t that the intent was malign. It was. The actual question is was it a violation of existing law. Probably not because they know how to skirt the law.
Hanlon’s razor cannot be applied effectively to Democrats of recent vintage, as they are predisposed to malice, especially concerning Trump. Can we apply it to Obama? A closer question, but one I’m inclined to answer in the negative.
But your point is well taken. Gabbard’s hyperbole is unprofessional and suggests incompetence. Whenever I see the words “treason” or “treasonous,” I immediately assume the person making the allegation is not to be taken seriously.
Finally, like you, I don’t know what to believe. Many on the right are assuring us that it is a far bigger scandal than Watergate. I personally have yet to see anything that makes it nearly that dramatic. Watergate was easy to understand. This is at best a convoluted mess with a lot of implied drama.
There is no doubt that Obama did things he shouldn’t have with regard to Trump. It is near-certain he had Trump’s communications tapped, and I have no doubt he was well aware of the goings-on in the Russia hoax before it was made public.
But he was the president, and such actions are directly within the ambit of his official duties, no matter how duplicitously he performed them, or how incompetently. He is immune from any criminal liability under Trump v. United States, 603 U.S. 593.
Unless something a lot more directly convincing comes up, I think that there is little in the way of lawbreaking that can be prosecuted, and since I think the case would have to be brought in DC, there seems a small chance of conviction.
I’m ignoring it until somebody shows me something more damning than what I have seen. And Gabbard should try to learn from Bondi’s mistakes and knock off the dramatic pronouncements.
You admit that the people who were at the highest levels of law enforcement and intelligence are capable of criminal behavior, you’ve watched them lie about the obvious, but still say, eh, not sure they’ve committed any crimes. There was ZERO legitimate reason to spy on the Trump campaign.
You know the major “axis” media companies have lied outright about all the stories in question.
You know from the Twitter files that the Democrat administration was indeed trying to ILLEGALLY control information.
You know from congressional testimony that Lois Lerner was delaying approvals for and/or round filling IRS approvals for conservative PACs.
And the influence peddling with Burisma, or the Chinese money flowing to the Biden family, or the DoJ targeting parents who opposed gay porn in grade school at school board meetings, or, or, or….
But, well, you can’t trust conservative media either.
You know, the ones who said the tech companies were shadow banning conservative media outlets BEFORE the Twitter files came out. The ones who said the IRS was interfering with the election by sandbagging conservative PACs BEFORE public hearings, the ones who broke the Hunter Biden laptop story, and, and, and….
If you had to pick one side of media over the other, is it really that hard? Not saying conservative media is perfect, but frankly, not hard to decide to who to trust more.
As to Gabbard, the other side is literally trying to subvert the will of the voting public and a duly elected government and destroy how our government is supposed to work, but, yeah, Gabbard is engaging in hyperbole.
How it’s different than the cops saying “we believe so and so is guilty of a brutal murder, and we’re submitting the evidence to the DA” I don’t know, but I’m sure I’ll be schooled shortly.
Finally, I find it absurd you’re not sure all of this is bigger than Watergate. That was over and done with in 2-3 years from start to finish. They’ve been undermining Trump and trying to put him in prison for 8 years, and they’re STILL trying to sabotage him. And they’ll try to put him in jail once he’s out of office.
Wait, are you saying that I’m not sure that the sabotaging of Trump’s first term isn’t “bigger than Watergate”? First of all, the post doesn’t mention Watergate at all. Second, the “2016 Post Election Ethics Train Wreck” is the most used tag on this blog, because the unethical effort to foil democracy has been going on for all that time, and EA has documented it, along with the Big Lies used and the contrived justifications for impeachment. But to compare with Watergate, the President must be engaged in the conspiracy, and no, I haven’t seen what I would call definitive proof of that.
Sure, conservative media is more reliable than the Axis media—which is #22, “It’s not the worst thing.” I still can’t trust it, and neither should you.
No sir! That was in response to Glenn Logan; I hit the wrong button, and for some reason, it wouldn’t let me cut and paste the entirety of my text, so I hoped it was clear enough it was a response to Glenn.
Re: media, we’re left with an imperfect alternative, but one is clearly more reliable than the other, as the evidence shows. It’s less “it’s not the worst thing” and more the lesser of two evils.
And just like all the stories conservative media wrote about nefarious activities based on a preponderance of available evidence, where the direct evidence was hidden until it wasn’t, I’m sure we’ll see it at some point.
The other difference between this and Watergate is people were out “find the truth” in both the press and government. Now they’ll actively and vigorously supress it, and probably destroy it (Thanks Bill & Hilary! If you remember the story that they “allegedly” shredded documents re: Whitewater…) in furtherance of their wicked agenda.