Obama Knew the Russiagate Intelligence Was Manufactured

Of course he did.

We have known for years that in July 2016, CIA Director John Brennan briefed Obama on how Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign had sought to "vilify" Trump by accusing him of collaborating with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

We already know that despite having this information in hand, Obama withheld intelligence about Russia from the Trump transition team and ordered agencies to compile an assessment of the situation.

Now, typically, such an assessment, which brings together intelligence at the highest levels, takes months to gather and analyze. This report, however, was cobbled together in just a few weeks so that the Obama administration could control not only the content but the messaging before the new administration began.

To understand how shoddy the assessment was, consider that it included the Steele dossier in the annex, an opposition-research document paid for by Democrats, but not the views of two senior CIA officers from the Russia mission center who argued that there was no evidence that Putin's ham-fisted meddling was intended to boost Trump's fortunes. Indeed, it turns out that numerous career officials expressed skepticism about the claim.

It is utterly implausible that Obama did not know that potentially exculpatory evidence regarding Clinton's role in spreading the Russia collusion hoax was omitted. It is certainly worth asking him.

In any event, a responsible report even intimating that a president-elect's campaign may have been involved in a seditious plot would be undertaken with extra special care. Instead, it was weaponized.

In her very last hour in office, Obama's national security adviser, Susan Rice, wrote a transparently self-preserving email to protect the president, claiming that she'd attended a meeting in which he stressed to then-FBI Director James Comey that everything in the Trump-Russia investigation should proceed "by the book."

Why? Why mention this on her last day? Did high-ranking Obama administration officials such as Comey not always conduct their investigations "by the book"?

Of course, they didn't. It was the dirtiest political trick played on the public in U.S. history. As intended, the Russia hysteria paralyzed the incoming presidency. It probably worked even better than those who hatched it could have imagined, as the legacy media took the bait on virtually every anonymously sourced story, no matter how far-fetched.

"Mr. President," Adam Schiff, then a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said in 2017, "the Russians hacked our election and interfered. No one disputes this now but you." Anyone who disputed this characterization was smeared as a shill for a foreign power. Polls found that over 60% of Democrats claimed to believe that the Russians had altered vote tallies. Not one investigation, of course, not even special counsel Robert Mueller's inquiry, which was run by Trump-hating partisans, found any evidence that collusion had taken place.

Few events have done more to undermine our trust in elections and in our officials.

Attorney General Pam Bondi has launched a "strike force" to investigate the declassified findings regarding Obama's role. But Gabbard already accused the former president of "treason." As has Trump. One suspects that Gabbard's piecemeal release of declassified documents was intended to distract from the Jeffrey Epstein mess that was partly created by the administration.

This, too, is overpromising.

Sorry, those imagining Obama being cuffed and marched to the jailhouse in orange overalls are fooling themselves. It would be a miracle if anyone involved was indicted, much less convicted.

For one thing, the statute of limitations has expired on most of this event. And Obama, thanks to Trump v. United States, would enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts even if Bondi could prove criminality, which is doubtful.

This brand of corruption can't be explicitly found in any documents. Plotters don't have to have conversations. Everyone understood what was happening. And the system empowers intelligence heads with tremendous latitude and power. It has long been clear that everyone involved in the Russia hoax abused their position, but indicting a CIA director for, say, excluding certain information from an assessment report would be difficult, if it were illegal at all, which seems doubtful.

None of that is to contend that the president and his underlings weren't in on the plot. Or that we shouldn't find out the truth. But it will have to be the historical record. That's important, too.

(COMMENT, BELOW)

Previously:
• 07/18/25: Legacy Media Still Covering for Biden
• 06/27/25: Trump Learned the Lessons of Iraq
• 05/30/25: We Have No Constitutional or Moral Duty to Subsidize Harvard
• 05/30/25: Welcome to the Intifada, America
• 05/16/25: Scapegoating Biden Isn't Going to Solve the Dems' Problems
• 05/09/25: The Pulitzer Prizes Have Become a Sad Joke
• 05/05/25: How Do You Do, Fellow White People? Tim Walz Says Hello!
• 04/25/25: Ketanji Brown Jackson Makes a Powerful Argument for School Choice
• 04/18/25: If Everyone Is an Expert, No One Is
• 03/31/25: The Left's Imaginary COVID 'Reckoning'
• 03/21/25: Sorry, Conspiracy Theorists -- Lee Harvey Oswald Acted Alone
• 03/03/25: Mitch McConnell: A GOP Hall of Famer?
• 02/21/25: RFK's Dangerous Autism Lie
• 02/14/25: It's Time to End the EV Racket
• 02/07/25: If You Really Support Immigration, Stop Excusing Chaos
• 02/03/25: Trump's Gaza Proposal Makes Complete Sense
• 01/24/25: How Biden's Pardons Normalize Abuse of Power
• 01/17/25: Israel Makes a Deal With the Actual Devil
• 01/13/25: Why Javier Milei Matters
• 12/20/24: The Obama Doctrine Is Dead
• 12/13/24: It's time for a national conversation about left-wing violence
• 12/09/24: It's time for a national conversation about left-wing violence
• 11/08/24: Don't Trash the Constitution to Dunk on the Libs
• 11/08/24: This 'liberation' will NOT be reported
• 11/01/24: HARRIS Is the Bigger Threat to the Constitutional Order
• 09/20/24: Fact checked! Harris Is the Extremist
• 07/13/24: Explain Yourself, Kamala Harris!
• 07/05/24: How Biden's Mental Decline Went From 'Misinformation' to Fact in a Week
• 04/12/24: Biden Is Now Chasing the 'Death to America' Voter
• 03/15/24: Turns Out Biden Lied About Hur, Beau, And Why He Pilfered Classified Docs
• 02/09/24: Why Biden Is Threatening to Veto Aid to Israel
• 02/09/23: Electric Cars Are a Scam
• 06/30/23: Americans Have Never Been Less Threatened by 'Extreme Weather'
• 03/03/23: Questioning Biden's Ukraine Policy Doesn't Make You an 'Isolationist'
• 01/20/23: No ribbons? Don't hide behind religion!
• 01/13/23: On Classified Documents, Joe Biden Is Out of Excuses
• 04/29/22: Biden's Ministry of Truth
• 04/08/22: The Most Radical Abortion Law in the Nation
• 04/01/22: Recuse Yourself, Joe Biden
• 03/25/22: No, School Boards Are Not 'Banning Books'
• 03/11/22: Let Them Drive Teslas
• 01/28/22: It's Not Government's Job to 'Root Out' Misinformation
• 01/14/22: Biden's Big Elections Lie
• 01/07/22: Schumer's Ugly 'Voting Rights' Gamble
• 12/24/21:AOC's Grasp on American Governance Is a 'Farce'
• 12/17/21: Dems Pivot from Build Back Better to Useless Extremism
• 11/19/21: Reckoning' Over Steele Dossier?
• 10/15/21: The Biden White House Will Pay for Playing Inflation Games
• 09/24/21: The most demonstrable political scandal still ignored
• 09/17/21: Sorry, AOC, The Rich Already Pay Their Fair Share
• 09/02/21: Why Isn't Biden to Blame for COVID-19 Deaths?
• 08/06/21: Biden's Unprecedented Attack on the Constitution
• 07/30/21: Jan. 6 Was Deplorable. It Was NOT a Coup
• 06/21/21: The Myth of Republican Obstructionism
• 05/21/21: What Does Putin Have on Biden?
• 04/16/21: Kristen Clarke Is Unfit to Be in Government
• 03/26/21: No to DC Statehood is far from GOP being reflexive
• 03/22/21: Biden Prepares to Strip College Students of Due Process Rights The Hypocrisy of the Filibuster Busters
• 03/12/21: Biden Prepares to Strip College Students of Due Process Rights
• 03/05/21: AOC's Terrible Minimum Wage Argument
• 02/12/21: The Dem Party Is Radicalizing against the Constitution
• 02/05/21: What NOT to Do with Marjorie Taylor Greene
• 01/15/21: Free Speech Is a Value Not Just a Right
• 12/31/20: It Can't Get Any Worse Than 2020. Here's a 2021 Political Wish List
• 10/26/20: Wanted: An Honest Debate about the Death Penalty
• 10/26/20: These are the questions 'Big Guy' Biden must be forced to answer about Hunter's emails
• 09/11/20: The Dems' Dangerous Delegitimization of the Election
• 08/28/20: Biden Is Underperforming Hillary in Battleground States
• 08/14/20: Kamala Harris, Imaginary Centrist
• 07/24/20: Who you calling a fascist?
• 07/17/20: Speech Police have finally gone too far
• 07/03/20: 'But Gorsuch' Is Still Trump's Best Argument
• 06/22/20: Welcome to America's Cultural Revolution
• 06/12/20: The color of my skin is not an indictment of my morality, nor does it strip me of my agency
• 06/05/20: What this son of immigrants knows about bulding bussinesses --- and the dismay of destruction
• 05/28/20: The Folly of Twitter's Fact-Check
• 05/22/20: Dems Warning Trump Will Reject Election Results Should Look in the Mirror
• 05/15/20: Obamagate Is NOT a Conspiracy Theory
• 05/08/20: Really, Joe --- due process is the opposite of justice?