NR's Andrew McCarthy: Nothing new in the Obama stuff.

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The Democrats’ caterwauling that Russia stole the 2016 election from Clinton was nonsense. It has long been widely recognized for what it was: a fever dream by which Democrats sought to avoid conceding the true cause of the party’s loss

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All week, Washington buzzed with rumors about imminent document releases, but what came out wasn’t what many expected. Gabbard’s documents show the Obama White House overruling months of reports downplaying Russian interference and ordering subordinates to set a time bomb of manipulated intelligence, with the aim of trying to, as Gabbard described it, “usurp” an incoming president. No longer a tertiary character, Obama is now “center square” in the Russiagate scam, as one source put it.

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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.”

All of that is yet to be determined. Until then, here’s a detailed review of what yesterday’s releases say, and why they signal a shift toward former president Obama:

Gabbard’s office put out two files. One is a 114-page document titled, “Declassified evidence of Obama administration’s conspiracy to subvert Trump’s 2016 victory and presidency.” The other is an 11-page press release that highlights the same documents, in a timeline with commentary. Gabbard compressed the releases further in an email chain replete with flow charts:

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The documents focus on emails to and from the office of then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, whose name was conspicuously absent when news about criminal investigations into other Obama-era intelligence chiefs broke. Clapper throughout the Trump-Russia affair has been more publicly reserved than Comey or especially Brennan, who in 2019 excitedly suggested Special Counsel Robert Mueller might deliver indictments on the “Ides of March.” In contrast, Clapper told Chuck Todd on Meet The Press at the outset of Russiagate mania that “we had no evidence of collusion” when he left office in January 2017:

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The next documents in the chain show that not only Clapper’s office but others, including the FBI, were relatively unconcerned about Russian interference. Figures like Virginia Senator and key Russiagate figure Mark Warner are already dismissing Gabbard’s report as an attempt to “cook the books” by comparing “apples and oranges,” the apples being Russian efforts to attack “election infrastructure,” the oranges being “influence” operations. But emails dating back to September 2016 show a dismissive attitude toward both concepts, as well as a lack of conviction about Russia’s ability to impact or “disrupt” the election outcome in any way.

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By December 7th, 2016, Clapper’s office prepared text for a Presidential Daily Briefing headed ACTIVITY ON AND SINCE ELECTION DAY and reading:


By the next day, December 8th, officials had text prepared that read, “Russian and criminal actors did not impact recent US election results by conducting malicious cyber activities against election infrastructure.”

This wording was scheduled to be entered into the PDB — not a public report, but a confidential briefing to President Obama — the next day, December 9th. However, Comey’s FBI on the afternoon of the 8th unexpectedly withdrew from the PDB.

“FBI will be drafting a dissent this afternoon,” a Bureau official wrote at 3:48 p.m. “Please remove our seal and annotations of co-authorship.” About an hour later, at 4:53 p.m., an official from Clapper’s office axed the PDB for the time being. “Based on some new guidance, we are going to push back publication of the PDB,” the official wrote. “It will not run tomorrow and is not likely to run until next week.”

At that point, a meeting of Obama’s National Security Principals Committee was held. The list of attendees reads like an all-star collection of MSNBC green room visitors: John Kerry, Victoria Nuland, John Brennan, Avril Haines, Ben Rhodes, and Andrew McCabe, among others. One source told me to note the name Richard Ledgett from the National Security Agency, who “played a role in this”:

This is the group that the next day received a group email from Clapper’s office headed “POTUS Tasking on Russia Election Meddling,” asking them to “produce an assessment per the President’s request,” with a target release date of January 9th, 2017:
The IC is prepared to produce an assessment per the President’s request, that pulls together the information we have on the tools Moscow used and the actions it took to influence the 2016 election, an explanation of why Moscow directed these activities, and how Moscow’s approach has changed over time, going back to 2008 and 2012 as reference points.

In sum, just before Obama was to receive a briefing that contained no reference to significant Russian interference, the briefing was called off and a high-level meeting of White House security officials was convened, after which Obama himself tasked them with a new assessment that would lean toward a more aggressive conclusion. Although this new effort was to be directed by Clapper’s office, the critical job of divining Russia’s motives would be given to the CIA and Brennan:

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Maga in a nutshell. Never seen it so clearly stated before.

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He’s right. And deep down, you probably know it.

If roles were reversed, there’s no universe anyone here would fall for the perfectly timed “bIgGer tHAN waterGAte” scandal on the heels of the biggest totally self made f*** up to date.

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Seldom Seen

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