Of course, being elected on little more than undefined “Hope and Change” almost certainly meant there was always a good chance the resulting legacy would burn just as easy as the paper-thin resume of the administration’s namesake. Any little spark along the way was bound to do the job. Alas, the flame thrower administered to it by DNI Gabbard this week will work too…at least in drawing attention and adding details to the storyline largely already known for years to those who have been willing to see. (New, enlightening information or not, the bright flame will attract the attention of an expanded and more willing audience than similar news did – or could have – three or more years ago.) But, before we get to that, a few gratuitous flashbacks for my ego…
There is one aspect to this that I wish to foot-stomp here just a bit. Although the genesis of this modern brand of hyper-corruption dates back to at least 2009, this scandal covers the coordinated interference in a U.S. presidential election by the DNC (a wholly owned subsidiary of the Clinton campaign) and agencies of the Executive branch of the federal behemoth (with the full approval of the sitting Democrat president) to the extended active coup throughout the first twenty seven or so months of the Trump administration that enlisted not only the efforts of the U.S. Congress but the entire corporate media complex. But, what must not be forgotten is the middle phase: The attempted disruption of the rightful and peaceful transition of power.
To review: Government agencies were spying on [Trump] in his own buildings before the election. Democrats up to and including Dingbat Pelosi were talking (i.e. planning) impeachment well before inauguration day. …
What we now understand as “the Deep State”, in full coordination with major components of “the State”, and all of its ancillary forces had openly declared war on Donald Trump…the duly elected president-elect to be…as early as July 2016. In this, all of these same forces had openly declared war on We the People, our liberties under the Constitution, and our rights under this voluntary compact to elect our Chief Executive. Having failed on election day, the focus shifted to contesting – by hook or by crook – every step forward from that point on. The rightful and peaceful transition of power in good faith was the next hurdle erected.
[Emphasis added]
Lest you think those were fresh concepts two years ago, let us step back another year to May 22, 2022, with an earlier Ricochet post titled ‘An Honest Accounting: Anti-Trumpism and the Violence Done to the American Traditions of Free and Fair Elections and the Peaceful Transfer of Power‘ (full text recreated at this little outpost here and also appears in its entirety at the bottom of this page):
Fact 1: The actions of the fully corrupt merger of the Obama administration, the Clinton campaign, and the DNC throughout the last half of 2016 did more violence to the American tradition of the peaceful transfer of power as derived from the will of the people than a thousand January 6 “riots” ever could have.
[Emphasis added]
One last retrospective note, in the November 20, 2024 post here that featured the “Fact 1” repeated above, I also commented:
And, by the way, since Obama, Biden, and Pelosi are the figures that have been the primary characters intentionally pushing the (already fragile) constitutional Republic so close to the edge of ruin, I fully expect a very deliberate program from the Second Term Trump team to make sure the correct history is written of these three twits and that their legacies are appropriately in tatters by this time of year in 2028. In addition to payback for the lawfare waged from the Oval Office (under two Democrat Presidents) against a Republican candidate/nominee/President-Elect/President, setting the record straight against a decade and a half of loyal progressive narrative recitation, reliably incurious “investigative journalism”, and just plain fake-news is an important part of cleaning up the mess being left behind after this failed decade-and-a-half diversion into undefined “Hope and Change.”
[Emphasis added]
Now that I got that out of the way, let us ease into some aggressive scatter shooting of the coverage of those actions taken by Miss Tulsi at this putrid target…
The Trump-Russia collusion story was always a targeted false smear intended to generate a special counsel and hamstring the surprising winner from the 2016 election, Donald Trump. The Russia-Collusion narrative was always an Intelligence Community op against Donald Trump.
Yesterday, Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard released a tranche of background information, [114 pages of information], showing how the Obama administration intentionally and with great purpose fabricated the entire story. …
All of the outlined activity, the release of the emails and communication within the scheme team, is not new. However, the new part is the evidence. The facts now public to support all previous claims made here and by others, this time with greater detail that cannot be refuted. …
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has released a memorandum on the intelligence community’s assessment of Russian participation in the 2016 presidential election, that includes email excerpts and a time line. Gabbard herself says that these documents reveal a “treasonous conspiracy” against the Trump administration and the American people. …
An increasing body of information on the misuse of the intelligence agencies and the FBI to front for the Democratic Party and to undermine the Trump administration has been made public. Just two weeks ago, the CIA released an important report on this subject that we wrote about here. That report indicates that DNI John Brennan insisted on including the fabricated Steele dossier as the basis for anti-Trump assessments, even though the responsible intelligence professionals said that it “did not meet even the most basic tradecraft standards.” There is more, besides, in that report.
…on balance, I don’t think the most recent revelations from the DNI add much to our understanding of the Democrats’ partisan misuse of intelligence. That said, the complete story of that scandal, likely the worst in American history, remains to be written.
…Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard began releasing documents this afternoon related to intelligence community shenanigans committed in the waning days of Barack Obama’s presidency, before and after the 2016 presidential election. It’s damning stuff that exposes the Trump-Russia hysteria as a complete and utter fake, and should obliterate the reputation of the commercial news media. There is no answer to these documents. …
On the following day, December 9th, 2016, members of Obama’s National Security Principals Committee — including Clapper, CIA director John Brennan, Susan Rice, John Kerry, Brian McKeon, Loretta Lynch, Andrew McCabe, and Avril Haines — gathered for a meeting, after which each received an email titled, “POTUS Tasking on Russia Election Meddling.” The email tasked the members with the creation of a new “assessment per the President’s request.”
From that moment forward, intelligence officials began leaking “blatantly false” information about a nonexistent “secret assessment” that Russia intervened to influence the “outcome of the election.” This leaking continued unabated until January 6th, when a new, hastily-crafted Intelligence Community Assessment was released, triggering a series of developments that led to the publication of the Steele Dossier and an explosion of media stories linking Trump and Russia in an unprecedented scandal.
— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) July 18, 2025
[Gunther Eagleman:] BOMBSHELL! Tulsi Gabbard allegedly has revealed that Obama may have forced the IC to make up intelligence about Russia and Trump.
🚨 MAJOR BREAKING: New documents from DNI Tulsi Gabbard reveal that the Obama administration "MANUFACTURED and POLITICIZED intelligence" to create the Trump-Russia narrative in the 2016 election
Gabbard has JUST declassified the files, and there is "overwhelming evidence"… pic.twitter.com/MbEZAFVHtk
[Eric Daugherty:] New documents from DNI Tulsi Gabbard reveal that the Obama administration “MANUFACTURED and POLITICIZED intelligence” to create the Trump-Russia narrative in the 2016 election
Gabbard has JUST declassified the files, and there is “overwhelming evidence” showing that Obama and Deep State officials set up the years-long hoax investigation that plagued Trump’s 1st term…
🚨 BREAKING: The Obama admin “MANUFACTURED” intelligence to create the Russia collusion hoax in 2016, per new documents declassified by @TulsiGabbard
TIME FOR ARRESTS!
A newly de-classified presidential briefing from Dec. 8, 2016 PROVED Obama knew it was a hoax, but pressed… pic.twitter.com/rfPNSXUcFk
[Nick Sortor:] The Obama admin “MANUFACTURED” intelligence to create the Russia collusion hoax in 2016, per new documents declassified by @TulsiGabbard …
A newly de-classified presidential briefing from Dec. 8, 2016 PROVED Obama knew it was a hoax, but pressed forward with it anyway.
The brief read: “We assess that Russian and criminal actors did not impact recent US election results by conducting malicious cyber activities against election infrastructure.”
The Obama admin then leaked FALSE, politicized “intelligence” reports to the media in order to create the Russia hoax, which would drag on for YEARS.
Obama and his cronies like Clapper, Rice, and Brennan should face Justice.
That piece correctly wraps up with the note: “We would be naïve to think that this fresh evidence would close the chapter on this silliness any time soon, but maybe it will finally be the beginning of the end of it.”
Barack Obama entered national politics with a smile that looked like Hope and Change. Amid rumors of family discord and disarray within the political party he once led, his face has hardened. He lately looks bitter, resentful, exhausted by the act.
In the wake of reports released by fellow Hawaiian and former Democrat Tulsi Gabbard, he also has a new problem. It once seemed a lock that Obama would be remembered as the winsome hero of Shepard Fairey’s portrait, but Gabbard’s documents place him at the center of an unprecedented act of political sabotage, committed in his last Oval Office days as a humiliated lame-duck in the winter of 2016-2017. The new Director of National Intelligence is targeting Obama’s legacy and maybe even his freedom, detailing a “treasonous conspiracy committed by officials at the highest level of our government,” announcing that everyone involved “must be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” …
The information from Gabbard’s office was not the only news on the Russiagate front. This investigation is not just about “ten-year-old news,” as has been a common talking point, but may also involve never-reported Biden-era issues. A source close to the investigation said yesterday that the DOJ is focusing on conspiracy charges and looking at conduct “from 2016 to 2024.” Another with ties to the administration said “President Trump’s national security team is looking at evidence that members of his 2024 campaign were spied on as well.”
[Emphasis added]
Given the extent to which Second Term Trump is wiser to the game and seems able to continuously dominate news cycles at will, color me optimistic that this flame will remain lit for quite some time…all for the betterment of the just and proper recording of American history.
And, as this phase of that history writing is occurring a full eight and a half years after the now 63-year-old Obama left the big office, I wish him great health with which to extend his ex-presidency (at least) another 30 to 35 years. The years of intellectual shame, disgust, and mockery will be a joy to watch.
Thanks to the evidence already released by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, it’s now clear that Barack Obama engaged in corrupt efforts to sabotage President Trump. And we’re likely just scratching the surface. More damning revelations are almost certainly on the way. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean Obama will ever see the inside of a courtroom, let alone a jail cell, even if he deserves it.
But don’t confuse a lack of prosecution with vindication. …
But while Obama may avoid prosecution, that doesn’t mean he’s off the hook entirely. “You could imagine a scenario where they lay out a conspiracy, and Barack Obama is named as an unindicted co-conspirator,” Solomon continued. “That would be one hell of a legacy for the 44th president.”
Indeed, while Obama will almost certainly avoid legal consequences, the political and historical fallout could be devastating. If he’s officially named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a plot to frame his successor, and the people who carried out that plot end up in prison, his legacy won’t just take a hit; it’ll be permanently disfigured. It’s hard to claim innocence when everyone who did your bidding goes down for the crime. …
Obama may not go to jail, but history may render its own indictment.
*** *** ***
My apologies for making this long post even longer but, without access to some of my relevant posts now hidden from me on the Member Feed over at the legacy site, I wish to keep some of the material closer and more accessible. Luckily, as noted above, I had recreated this one here at my little outpost but it is similarly buried in a related but very different post. Here it is again. Enjoy:
Understanding the Anti-Trump movement here to mean specifically those active beyond the legitimate election and oversight processes in both 2016 and 2020 (and all points in between) in attempts to keep Mr. Trump from holding and executing the office per the wishes of We the People, there is an applicable adaptation to the above quote for those who conspired against the very essence of this experiment in republican governance. We must not let these traitors off the hook with the oblivion (or historical anonymity) they desire.
Let me back up for a moment and state, based on my clear and obvious agenda here at the Lower Member Feed, two clear facts:
Fact 1: The actions of the fully corrupt merger of the Obama administration, the Clinton campaign, and the DNC throughout the last half of 2016 did more violence to the American tradition of the peaceful transfer of power as derived from the will of the people than a thousand January 6 “riots” ever could have.
Fact 2: The actions of many non-elected current and former government employees coordinated through a willfully compliant media apparatus to knowingly plant lies and mislead the voters as well as the intentional bastardization of state-run election organizations and processes by outside leftist money and influence did more to undermine the legitimacy of all future Presidential elections and administrations than a million mean tweets over 4 or 8 years ever could have.
The hysterics and empty twaddle of breaking news and cable media roundtable discussions notwithstanding, the exhausting daily barrage of fake news over a mere 2000 days of this country’s history does nothing to offset the undeniable facts above. (Argue with that term – “fake news” – all you want but at this point it just makes you look silly.) Honest history, some of which has been written since early 2021, should not let the actors fade into oblivion.
I go down this path today not because of unremarkable things appearing in the news like this:
Turley: “Clinton personally approved the plan to spread the false Alfa bank story. It was one of the most successful disinformation campaigns in American politics, and Mook implicated Clinton as green-lighting the gas-lighting of the electorate.”
For those not habitually and stubbornly marinating their minds in MSNBC drivel, nothing could be less shocking. But I do want to draw your attention to this brief passage at the same link:
…Hillary approved the plan to smear Donald Trump with the Russia collusion hoax on July 26, 2016. (The Fusion GPS/Christopher Steele “dossier” fabrication was under way by this time.) Her action was immediately picked up by Russian intelligence. At almost the same time, U.S. intelligence, spying on the Russians, got the story. On July 28, just two days after Hillary allegedly green-lighted the smear, Barack Obama, James Comey, Susan Rice and Denis McDonough assembled to be briefed by John Brennan on the situation.
Every word of that was known long ago. The main point here is that the Oval Office knew. They knew from the start and they did nothing about it. If you don’t read that as the Executive Branch of our government was supportive of and/or complicit in the enterprise then you just aren’t paying attention. Worse, as Trump found out not soon after the election, the same Executive Branch was (and had been) spying on him and his team for quite some time.
Add to that the fact that the Legislative Branch under the active control of the fully corrupt Nancy Pelosi had openly declared war on Trump with impeachment threats and plans even before his taking of the oath of office AND that the progressive allies on the street executed a “mostly peaceful” insurrectionriot demonstration on the streets of DC the day after his inauguration and before he had done anything in his official capacity…certainly much less damage to the country or anyone in it than Biden did in his first nine hours in office…but don’t get me started. None of this, you should notice, represents a party that is interested in free and fair elections and the smooth, peaceful transfer of power…clearly, at least one of the two parties no longer has the intention of participating in good faith in this experiment. If they ever did. (For the record, everyone associated with and/or carrying water for the current charade that is the Jan 6 Committee — and pretending that it is some kind of noble effort against the historically factual backdrop described here — deserves to be included by name in the recorded accounting of the times.)
Also note that sentence almost hidden in the middle of the quote above: “Her action was immediately picked up by Russian intelligence.” There can be little doubt that Hillary’s unapproved and unprotected communications were a well-known conduit to America’s business by the Russians and probably everybody else around the world…including our own intelligence agencies. This had been an open conduit since at least 2009. That it was not closed by Obama and the agencies under his direction is telling. But, if you have been paying attention, certainly not surprising. But I digress.
More from this week that was...with a little creativity we could make a deck of cards (similar to the terrorist list used during the “war” by GWB) out of these traitors to the American cause:
One of the most galling aspects of the Hunter Biden laptop saga is that the 51 former intelligence officials who played such a critical role in suppressing The Post’s stories and giving Joe Biden cover before the 2020 election have never been brought to account.
The “Dirty 51” lied by painting our stories as Russian disinformation in an Oct. 19, 2020, letter they signed and delivered to Politico five days after The Post exposé and three days before the final presidential debate of the election campaign.
They used the institutional weight of their powerful former roles to legitimize partisan political propaganda designed to smear The Post and everyone associated with the story and dissuade the rest of the media from looking deeper into the laptop.
The letter, titled “Public Statement on the Hunter Biden emails,” and signed by former CIA Directors John Brennan, Leon Panetta and Mike Hayden, former acting CIA Director Michael Morell, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and other ex-spooks, claimed the material on Hunter’s hard drive “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation,” although not one of them had seen it.
Their lie “probably affected the outcome” of the 2020 presidential race, as former Attorney General William Barr has said, describing the letter as “partisan hackery,” “baseless” and signed by “a coterie of retired intelligence officials who had lost their professional bearings.”
[Emphasis added]
Even more:
“Over a year after the election, it is conceded that the laptop and its contents are authentic, and the judgement espoused by these 51 former intelligence officials is baseless and false. Yet, the implications of this breach continue. Media outlets used this purportedly credible intelligence assessment as a justification to not report on the story. Some polls show that up to 17% of people who voted for President Biden would not have if they knew about the contents of the laptop at the time.” …
Barr, who was AG at the time, recently told Fox News he was “very disturbed during the debate when candidate Biden lied to the American people about the laptop. He’s squarely confronted with the laptop, and he suggested that it was Russian disinformation and pointed to the letter written by some intelligence people that was baseless — which he knew was a lie …
“When you’re talking about interference in an election, I can’t think of anything more than that kind of thing.”
Again, we see here that at least one of our two political parties of record (and its operatives in and out of government…and on unknown payrolls) is clearly not interested in free and fair elections. The great silence from the watchdog class is deafening. But the greater disappointment to me is the comfortable silence of the masses that I see in my little corner of the world. So many were worn to exhaustion by the 24/7 frenzy of the Democrat-Media temper tantrum over Trump for four long years. They all just want peace and quiet from the TV and don’t seem to even notice the full collapse and complete corruption of the American experiment going on all around them.
Enough for one day. Sorry for rambling on so long.
the philo t. custis institute 