Journalist Matt Taibbi framed Tulsi Gabbard's report on the origin of the Russia hoax as a "big step forward," telling Newsmax on Monday that the link to former President Barack Obama is a "significant disclosure."
Although the intelligence linking President Donald Trump to collusion with Russia had always been dubious, it was never known until now that it originated from the White House, Taibbi said.
Taibbi joined "Rob Schmitt Tonight" hours after the Department of Justice confirmed it received the Director of National Intelligence's criminal referral alleging that Obama and his national security team laid the groundwork for a "yearslong" Russia-connected "coup" against Trump following the 2016 election.
"This is a significant disclosure. It's a big step forward in this investigation. We've known all along that there was a problem in how the intelligence community assessment of 2017 was put together. But it was not known that it was at the direction of the White House and Barack Obama, and that this turnaround was that sudden," Taibbi said. "We thought it was an intramural decision between the agencies. And that appears to be not the case anymore."
Gabbard asserted that the defining moment of the conspiracy was a Dec. 9, 2016, meeting that Obama held at the White House with his top national security advisers, including DNI James Clapper, to discuss Russia. What was said in that meeting changed the course of the entire Russia investigation.
"That's still one of the sort of mysteries of this whole thing is, what changed? Because all of the agencies, with the exception of CIA, had publicly repudiated or had at least not backed the Steele dossier intelligence publicly up until then," Taibbi said. "The New York Times right before the election: FBI sees no clear link between Trump and Russia. But suddenly on that day, there's a directive from above, and we don't know what caused that."
After that meeting, Clapper's executive assistant sent an email to intelligence community leaders to task them to create a new assessment "per the President's request" to detail "the tools Moscow used and actions it took to influence the 2016 election."
"But it's important to understand that this was significant, because now all of the agencies had to embrace the Steele dossier. There was no way to come to the conclusion that they did without Steele," Taibbi added.
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Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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