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DNI Tulsi Gabbard Pulls the Plug on Russiagate

  • Independent News Roundup By Independent News Roundup
  • Jul 26, 2025

Daniel Platt EIRNS

On July 18, U.S. Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard released over 100 pages of previously classified documents which provide evidence of what she calls “a treasonous conspiracy to subvert the will of the American people.” In releasing this report, Gabbard denounced the promotion of the Russiagate story by intelligence officials as “narrative building,” and not “intelligence gathering.” The fairy tale that Russia had somehow manipulated the US election to elect Donald Trump came to dominate American political discourse as a result.

The point of this false narrative was not merely to assuage the gigantic ego of Hillary Clinton, but as EIR has insisted since the inception of Russiagate, it was always a fraud, orchestrated by leading British Intelligence operatives to prevent the incoming president Donald Trump from normalizing relations with Russia, and to lay the groundwork for the “destruction of Russia,” as the senile President Joe Biden called for on numerous occasions, even if it meant risking a thermonuclear showdown. All facets of the “Deep State,” from the corrupted intelligence agencies to the whorish mob of commentators who identify as corporate journalists, were soon fully engaged in promoting what historians will remember as the biggest and most preposterous conspiracy theory in American history to date.

The Hitler-endorsing New York Times was emboldened to feature a crassly homophobic cartoon video, depicting Trump and Putin as gay lovers (liberals who would normally be outraged felt free to snicker.) Russiagate caused American political culture to regress to the McCarthyite 1950s, and even after the Mueller Report (which sought to find some basis in fact for the theory) came up empty-handed, Russophobes in the Congress like Sen. Adam Schiff continued to behave as if the theory were credible.

The end result was the intended worsening of US-Russia relations, which made the current Ukraine-Russia proxy war possible, and led to the death of over one million Ukrainian soldiers and probably tens of thousands of Russian soldiers as well.

DNI Tulsi Gabbard’s investigation makes it possible to hold the authors of this scam accountable for their crimes.

Gabbard’s Releases

In her official DNI X feed, Gabbard posts a series of devastating info-graphics along with a timeline, showing that on August 31, September 9, and December 7, 2016, the Intelligence Community (IC) had determined that Russia had neither the capacity or the intention to hack the 2016 election infrastructure, and included this assessment in a December 8, 2016 President’s Daily Briefing (PDB) which was then withheld from President Obama on orders of then-DNI James Clapper’s office, as instructed in a memo that read: “Based on some new guidance, we are going to push back publication of the PDB. It will not run tomorrow and is not likely to run until next week.”

The following day, December 9, a White House meeting was convened which included CIA Director Brennan, FBI Director Comey, DNI Clapper, then-National Security Advisor Susan Rice, Secretary of State John Kerry, Assistant Secretary Victoria Nuland, and others where, according to Gabbard, “Obama directed the IC to create a new intelligence assessment that detailed Russian election meddling, even though it would contradict multiple intelligence assessments released over the previous several months.”

Clapper’s DNI office scrambled to piece together a “new assessment” which was released on January 6, 2017, which opened the door to the lying Russiagate story which dominated Trump’s first term.

That “new assessment” was largely based on the already discredited ‘Steele Dossier’ that the UK’s GCHQ head Robert Hannigan had earlier delivered to CIA Director John Brennan.

In a statement on the release of the declassified documents on the assessment of Russian interference, Gabbard said, “This intelligence was weaponized…. It was used as a justification for endless smears, for sanctions from Congress, and for covert investigations.” She added: “When key internal assessments found that Russia ‘did not impact recent U.S. election results,’ those findings were suppressed.”

“For months before the 2016 election, the Intelligence Community maintained that Russia lacked both the intent and capability to hack U.S. elections,” Gabbard noted. “But once President Trump won, everything changed.”

Gabbard’s Role

Tulsi Gabbard, a combat veteran and former Democratic Congresswoman from Hawaii, drew the wrath of warmongers in the Democratic Party like Hillary Clinton, for her anti-war positions, as well as the likely rage of Wall Street for her support of reinstating the Glass-Steagall Act. She finally left the party, first becoming an independent, and later becoming a MAGA Republican, arriving at her current position as Director of National Intelligence in the Trump Administration. Readers of EIR will recall that we published a dossier in January on those who were attempting to block her confirmation to that latter post, which we called The Liars’ Bureau. This dossier was circulated broadly in the Congress and elsewhere by The LaRouche Organization, in a successful effort to ensure her confirmation.

The Empire Strikes Back

Arch-neocons from both political parties have been mobilized to counter Gabbard’s assault on the Deep State’s narrative. Virginia Sen. Mark Warner (D) and Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes (D) both stepped into the ring to try to keep Russiagate alive.
Senator Warner’s statement is the more rabid, and reads in part: “It is sadly not surprising that DNI Gabbard, who promised to depoliticize the intelligence community, is once again weaponizing her position to amplify the President’s election conspiracy theories. It is appalling to hear DNI Gabbard accuse her own IC workforce of committing a ‘treasonous conspiracy’ when she was unwilling to label Edward Snowden a traitor.”

Rep. Himes, appearing on Sunday, July 20, on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” with Margaret Brennan, takes a more sophistical approach:

“Himes: Now, what Tulsi is doing, it’s a little sleight of hand, but it’s worth focusing on. She is saying that the Intelligence Committee, early on, said that the Russians could not use cyber tools to mess with the voting infrastructure, the machines that tally our votes. And that was true then, and it is true now, though the Russians tried to break into a couple of states, you know, election technical infrastructure. They didn’t do it, but it is well known and well established that the Russians hacked into the DNC and undertook any number of other influence operations, including buying reams of Facebook ads to discredit Hillary Clinton. That is not in contention, right?

“…But, by the way, Margaret, if I may. … If I may. You asked about the referral. …

“Here’s the test. This is Epstein all over again. Criminal referrals. We’re going to prosecute Barack Obama. You know, treasonous and seditious. Here’s the thing. And I hope that four, five, six weeks from now. Don’t take it from this Democrat. Four or five, six weeks from now, let’s see if this administration, Tulsi Gabbard accusing a former president of treason, let’s see if they bring charges. They won’t. They won’t, because there’s not a judge in the land, not a single judge, who will treat this with anything other than laughter that will be heard from the Atlantic to the Pacific in this country.

“So, the test of this is, four, five, six weeks from now, is the DOJ bringing charges.”

Meanwhile, another attack on Gabbard, coming from delirious Republican Party neocon Sen. Tom Cotton (AR), was already underway. Cotton had offered section 402 of S.2342 - Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026, titled “Modification of responsibilities and authorities of the Director of National Intelligence,” which prevents the DNI from investigating or generating its own intelligence. An analysis of the proposed section by the Conservative Treehouse concludes: “Cotton demands the ODNI just accept and regurgitate the intelligence Tulsi Gabbard would be given by the other agencies; no independent review of analysis permitted. All of these actions push the Intelligence Community power center back into the CIA and away from the prying eyes of the DNI.”

Intent to Lie

A bit of fact-checking is in order here. First, Rep. Himes’ claim that “it is well known and well established that the Russians hacked into the DNC”: this was conclusively debunked eight years ago by Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, in a memo titled “Was the ‘Russian Hack’ an Inside Job?” The organization conducted forensic studies which led them to conclude that “on July 5, 2016, data was leaked (not hacked) by a person with physical access to DNC computer. After examining metadata from the “Guccifer 2.0” July 5, 2016, intrusion into the DNC server, independent cyber investigators have concluded that an insider copied DNC data onto an external storage device.” As for the allegation that the Russians were “buying reams of Facebook ads to discredit Hillary Clinton,” that is bunkum as well. Consortium News revealed that Facebook, under pressure from the very same Senator Warner, managed to find $100,000 in ads (a trivial sum during a presidential election) from accounts “suspected of links to Russia.” Consortium News reported that the majority (56%) of these ads appeared after the election, and “weren’t for or against a specific candidate, but rather addressed supposedly controversial issues that the mainstream media insists were meant to divide the United States and thus somehow undermine American democracy.” One example of such a controversial issue was the proliferation of “puppy pages,” with cute photos of baby animals serving as clickbait. So, Rep. Himes’ assertion that his claims are “not in contention” does not pass the smell test.

We can’t know for certain whether Himes, and the host of partisan hacks and sleazebag cable TV anchors that have willingly amplified these falsehoods, were fully aware that these claims are fabricated. However, in the case of the Obama administration officials named in Gabbard’s memo, there is no longer any doubt.

One of the documents declassified and released by Gabbard is a September 12, 2016 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) in which the NSA and the FBI broke with their intelligence counterparts and expressed “low confidence” in the theory that Russia hacked and leaked embarrassing Democratic Party emails in an effort to help Trump. This refutes the oft-repeated claim that there was a “consensus” among the intelligence agencies behind the theory. However, instead of applying the brakes, Obama hit the accelerator. The September ICA was suppressed.

In October Obama directed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to issue a joint statement claiming that the “U.S. Intelligence Community is confident” that Russia hacked the Democratic Party in order to “interfere with the U.S. election process.” Then on December 9, Obama convened the above-mentioned meeting to which selected intelligence officials were invited. Gabbard has declassified and released a summary of that meeting, where it was resolved to “publicly release and attribute to Russian intelligence services technical and other information ... in intelligence reporting” from that same day. A new ICA was “made to order”, one that excluded any dissenting assessments. Titled “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections,” it was released publicly in January 2017 after being finalized under the Obama administration.

Taken together, these newly declassified documents provide the “smoking gun” which demonstrates the Obama team’s deliberate crafting of a lie that had enormous, global repercussions.

Referrals for Prosecution

On Monday, July 21, the Department of Justice confirmed that it had received recommendations from Gabbard for individuals who should be prosecuted in what Gabbard called a "treasonous conspiracy." Two intelligence community officials have been referred, with a third “on the way,” and their names have not been made public. Gabbard has also threatened to refer additional persons. In her timeline, among the names mentioned are James Clapper, John Brennan, Susan Rice, John Kerry, Brian McKeon, Loretta Lynch, Andrew McCabe, and Avril Haines.

The decision on whether to prosecute now rests with Attorney General Pam Bondi, and there is no guarantee that she will take action.

In a Sunday interview July 20 with Fox commentator Maria Bartiromo, Gabbard promised that there are more documents coming, and said that now that action was being taken by her office to expose and bring to justice the perpetrators of the devastating Russiagate fraud, whistleblowers are coming forward with more information.

Diane Sare, Dennis Small and Harley Schlanger contributed to this article.

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