Revenge Is A Dish Best Served Cold

I'm sure that you have seen the news stories of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard indicating that she was going to to refer Obama administration officials to the Justice Department for falsifying an intelligence assessment to be used to undermine President Trump during his first term. As the Guardian sums up the matter:

    Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, has called for Barack Obama and former senior US national security officials to be prosecuted after accusing them of a “treasonous conspiracy” intended to show that Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential election win was due to Russian interference.

    She said Obama and senior officials in his administration had “[laid] the groundwork for … a years-long coup” against Trump after his victory over Hillary Clinton by “manufacturing intelligence” to suggest that Russia had tried to influence the election. That included using a dossier prepared by a British intelligence analyst, Christopher Steele, that they knew to be unreliable, Gabbard claimed.

    The post-election intelligence estimates contrasted with findings reached before the election, which indicated that Russia probably was not trying to interfere, she claimed. 

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released a press release that has a succinct timeline of the key events. Essentially, however, prior to the 2016 election, the intelligence community was clear that there was no Russian interference in the election process. However, after Trump's win, on December 9, 2016, a meeting was held among key members of the National Security Council including, among others, James Clapper, John Brennan, Susan Rice, John Kerry, Loretta Lynch, Andrew McCabe. 

After the meeting, DNI Clapper’s Executive Assistant sent an email to IC leaders tasking them with creating a new IC assessment “per the President’s request” that details the “tools Moscow used and actions it took to influence the 2016 election.” It went on to say, “ODNI will lead this effort with participation from CIA, FBI, NSA, and DHS.” 

The press release also points out that "this new assessment was based on information that was known by those involved to be manufactured i.e. the Steele Dossier or deemed as not credible." 

This was politicized intelligence that was used as the basis for countless smears seeking to delegitimize President Trump’s victory, the years-long Mueller investigation, two Congressional impeachments, high level officials being investigated, arrested, and thrown in jail, heightened US-Russia tensions, and more. 

DNI Gabbard appeared on Fox News on Sunday (video here)  to discuss the findings. Key was this statement:

Creating this piece of manufactured intelligence that claims that Russia had helped Donald Trump get elected contradicted every other assessment that had been made previously in the months leading up to the election that said exactly the opposite, that Russia had neither the intent nor the capability to try to "hack the United States election." 

She also confirmed that multiple whistleblowers, including some who helped prepare the fraudulent assessment, are preparing to hand over affidavits to the Department of Justice.

    The Democrats, of course, are not going to take this sitting down as this is a far bigger scandal than Watergate. The Gateway Pundit reports that "Democrat Congressman Jim Himes (D-CT), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, went into full-blown panic mode, demanding that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard stop releasing documents that expose Obama-era Deep State collusion and abuse of power." Himes apparently went so far to justify his demand by claiming that it put former commie and CIA director John Brennan in danger from MAGA "mouth-breathers". I'm sure that Himes' derogatory reference to MAGA supporters was intended to generate the violence that he ostensibly decries, but secretly hopes will happen. 

    Trump, in the meantime, is having fun with it: he has released a video on Truth Social showing a bunch of top Democrats, including Obama and Biden, all stating that "no one is above the law" before ending with an AI generated video showing Obama being arrested and jailed, set to the song "YMCA".