Gabbard Lies to Divert Attention from the Epstein Scandal

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start.

Trump is using wild conspiracy theories to distract from the mounting Epstein scandal.

Dan De Luce at NBC:

The former senior CIA officer who helped oversee the 2017 intelligence assessment on Russia’s interference in the 2016 election says Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and the White House are “lying” when they claim that it was an attempt to sabotage President Donald Trump.

Susan Miller, a retired CIA officer who helped lead the team that produced the report about Russia’s actions during the 2016 campaign, told NBC News it was based on credible information that showed Moscow sought to help Trump win the election, but that there was no sign of a conspiracy between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign.

“The director of national intelligence and the White House are lying, again,” Miller said. “We definitely had the intel to show with high probability that the specific goal of the Russians was to get Trump elected.”

She added: “At the same time, we found no two-way collusion between Trump or his team with the Russians at that time.”Miller spoke to NBC News after Gabbard alleged Wednesday that the 2017 intelligence assessment was based on “manufactured” information as part of a “treasonous conspiracy” by the Obama administration to undermine Trump and tarnish his electoral victory. Gabbard cited a 2020 report from Republicans on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which she declassified and released this week, that asserted there was insufficient information to conclude Russia had been trying to tip the scales in favor of Trump.

More details at AP 

Tulsi Under the Bus

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start

Politico Playbook:

This is a president who campaigned for years on ending American involvement in overseas wars; a man who, in 2011 and 2012, mockingly claimed then-President Barack Obama was about to start a war with Iran just to distract from his own failings. Only a couple of months ago, his own director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, said Iran is “not building a nuclear weapon.” And this is the self-styled “dealmaker-in-chief.” Is he really going to flip it all around with a Middle East bombing campaign

Q: "Tulsi Gabbard testified in March that the intelligence community said Iran wasn't building a nuclear weapon."

President Trump: "I don't care what she said. I think they were very close to having one." pic.twitter.com/6KTye52xP9

— CSPAN (@cspan) June 17, 2025

If Trump and Company Were Russian Assets...

 ...would they be doing anything differently?

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start. Hewgseth weakens our defenses against Russia just as Gabbard repeats Russian talking points.  

Counterintelligence catastrophe: all the DoD’s operations, for every single employee at a granular level, collected at one time, at one email address. It would take billions of dollars and many years for an adversary to get this information, if even possible, through espionage. pic.twitter.com/QoBvAJttlm

— John Jackson (@hissgoescobra) March 2, 2025

Pete Hegseth just reportedly ordered the US military’s Cyber Command to “stand down” from all planning against Russia. Analysts have been ordered not to follow or report on Russian threats.

One inside source said, “Putin is on the inside now.” pic.twitter.com/2vnNoL6FcK

— No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen (@NoLieWithBTC) March 2, 2025

The Washington Post confirms The Guardian's reporting (denied by DHS) that some CISA cyber-threat analysts have been told to "focus on adversaries other than Russia": https://t.co/pWUAFkF1qC

— Eric Geller (@ericgeller) March 2, 2025

"Churches are closing in Ukraine, elections are canceled, and the government fully controls the media" — U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard talking about 'values'.

This is exactly what Russian propaganda shows and the Kremlin are constantly spewing. pic.twitter.com/HVWbyWNP6w

— NOELREPORTS 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 (@NOELreports) March 3, 2025

A Good Day for Putin

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics.  

Brett Samuels at The Hill:

President Trump on Wednesday would not say whether he considers Ukraine to be an “equal member” of efforts to end the war between Moscow and Kyiv, as his administration pushes for negotiations between Russia and the neighboring country it invaded in 2022.

“It’s an interesting question,” Trump said in the Oval Office when asked if he viewed Ukraine as an equal member of the process.

“I think they have to make peace. Their people are being killed, and I think they have to make peace. I said that was not a good war to go into, and I think they have to make peace. That’s what I think.”

Trump said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would “have to do what he has to do” when asked about the prospect of ceding territory as part of negotiations to end the war.

Trump claimed Zelensky’s poll numbers were sinking, and he reiterated his belief that Europe should be doing more to support Ukraine because of its proximity to the conflict.

Trump also called it “unlikely” that Ukraine would return to its pre-2014 borders, before Russia seized Crimea, as part of a negotiated ceasefire.

“They took a lot of land, and they fought for that land and they lost a lot of soldiers,” Trump said. “I’m not making an opinion on it, but I’ve read a lot on it, and a lot of people think that’s unlikely. Some of it will come back. I think some of it will come back, yeah.”

 Anton Troianovski at NYT:

The call came on the same day that Mr. Trump’s defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, declared that the United States would not support Ukraine’s desire for NATO membership. It also came as the Senate confirmed Tulsi Gabbard, widely seen as sympathetic to Mr. Putin, as the next director of national intelligence.

...

In Moscow, news of the long-awaited call ushered in a wave of barely contained glee. Commentators claimed that the American-led three-year effort to isolate Russia had emphatically ended. They celebrated Mr. Trump’s glowing social media post after the call about “the Great History of Our Nations” and noted that the American president had spoken to Mr. Putin before he had called President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.

One Russian lawmaker said that Mr. Putin’s call with Mr. Trump “broke the West’s blockade.” Another said that Europeans were surely reading Mr. Trump’s post about it “with horror and cannot believe their eyes.” A third said it was a “day of good news.”

In a sign of the burst of optimism, Russia’s main stock market index jumped 5 percent on Thursday morning to its highest point since last summer, and its battered currency, the ruble, gained against the dollar to its strongest level since September.

The Best People

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. 

Lauren Weber and Caitlin Gilbert:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump’s nominee for the nation’s top health post, has repeatedly disparaged vaccines, falsely linked them to autism and argued that White and Black people should have separate vaccination schedules, according to a Washington Post review of his public statements from recent years.

In at least 36 appearances, Kennedy linked autism to vaccines, despite overwhelming scientific evidence supporting the use of vaccination to protect people from deadly infectious diseases and refuting any ties to autism, The Post found in a review of more than 400 of Kennedy’s podcast appearances, interviews and public speeches since 2020.

Kennedy, who is scheduled to face a Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday, criticized vaccines more broadly in at least 114 appearances, calling them dangerous, saying the risks outweigh the benefits and making misleading claims about vaccine safety testing or discrediting vaccine efficacy.

Holy sh*t. Senator Bennet absolutely annihilated RFK Jr. and exposed him for what he really is—an anti-vaxxer crackpot and grifter. In the pre-Trump era, this would have been the end of his nomination, and he would have withdrawn immediately.pic.twitter.com/Mmu6Ic23Vn

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) January 29, 2025

 

Ambassador Caroline Kennedy’s statement to the US Senate on RFKJr’s nomination for HHS Secretary

This is a reading of a letter she just sent to Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions

I’m so proud of my courageous mother, who’s lived a life of dignity,… pic.twitter.com/feysNA0Wwp

— Jack Schlossberg (@JBKSchlossberg) January 28, 2025

Brett Forrest, Caitlin Ostroff and Rebecca Feng at WSJ:

To defend and burnish Tulsi Gabbard’s image as her political star was rising, her congressional campaign hired a public-affairs firm in 2017 that tried to suppress coverage of an alleged pyramid scheme connected to her Hindu sect, according to interviews, emails and Federal Election Commission records.

Gabbard, a former House member who is now President Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence, was raised in the Science of Identity Foundation, a sect tied to a direct-marketing firm accused of running a pyramid scheme in several countries. Neither Gabbard, the sect nor the firm, QI Group, wanted the relationships scrutinized.

Gabbard’s campaign paid Washington, D.C.,-based Potomac Square Group for the PR cleanup, trying to mask the connections. But the operation was directed by a Science of Identity follower—and longtime Gabbard adviser—who sits on the board of a QI subsidiary.

The revelations shed further light on Gabbard’s ties to the religious group—publicly described by some former followers as a cult that demands total loyalty to its founder—and to the Hong Kong-based QI, which has been a target of criminal and civil cases alleging fraud and racketeering in at least seven countries.

...

Gabbard’s relative inexperience in national intelligence, as well as her past support for regimes in Russia and Syria, has raised concern among some national-security officials and lawmakers. Gabbard served two years on the House Homeland Security committee.

Gabbard seemed confused about a key U.S. national-security surveillance power in recent meetings with Senate Republicans. GOP lawmakers are expected to support her nomination.

Gabbard Is Dangerous

 Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Our next book is about the 2024 election. The consequences of that election are coming into view.  Tulsi Gabbard, Trump's pick for DNI, is a clear and present danger to national security.

Tim Snyder on Tulsi Gabbard:

In June 2015, as a congresswoman from Hawai'i, Gabbard visited Syria. During her stay, she was introduced to girls who had been burned from head to toe by a regime air strike. Her reaction to the situation, according to her translator, was to try to persuade the girls that they had been injured not by Syrian forces, but by the resistance. But this was impossible. Only Syria (at the time of her visit) and Russia (beginning weeks later) were flying planes and dropping bombs.

Either Gabbard was catastrophically uninformed about the most basic elements of the theater of war she was visiting, or she was consciously spreading disinformation. Those are the two possibilities. The first is disqualifying; the second is worse.

And if she was spreading disinformation consciously, she was also doing so with a pathological ruthlessness. Anyone who would lie to the child victims of an air strike to their burned faces would lie to anyone about anything. In January 2017, she visited Syria again, this time to speak to Assad. She began thereafter to deny that his regime had used chemical weapons on its own people. That was a very big lie.

... 

As Director of National Intelligence, Gabbard would do enormous harm, unwillingly or willingly. She is not just completely unqualified for this role -- she is anti-qualified. She is just the sort of person enemies of the American republic would want in this job. This is not a hypothetical -- Gabbard is the specific person that actual enemies of the United States do want in the job. The Russian media refers to Tulsi Gabbard as a "Russian agent" and as "girlfriend," with good reason.

Gabbard is worse than unfit. Her public record is as a disinformer and apologist for mass murderers. And there is nothing on the other side of the ledger. There are no positive qualifications. (Yes, she wrote a bestselling book. It became a bestseller because she scammed her followers into donating to a PAC which bought the book in bulk.)

Russia Applauds Trump's Picks

 Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Our next book is about the 2024 election. The consequences of that election are coming into view.

Julia Davis at The Daily Beast:

The incoming Trump administration fills Russian state TV propagandists with glee. In mid-November, when president-elect Donald Trump started to announce his future appointees, state TV host Olga Skabeeva gushed, “All of them are totally wonderful!”

Evgeny Popov, Skabeeva’s husband and the co-host of Russia’s 60 Minutes, concurred, describing Trump’s picks as his “radical dream team” and gleefully noting, “All of them personally despise Zelensky.” He cautiously added, “They aren’t friends of Russia, except for Tulsi Gabbard.”

For years, Gabbard’s propensity for spouting talking points that neatly aligned with the Kremlin’s agenda was seen as a boon for Moscow, with state TV host Vladimir Solovyov referring to the former congresswoman as “our girlfriend” and agreeing with pundits who described her as “Putin’s agent.”

Her planned appointment is not the only one that is being celebrated in Russia. Putin’s mouthpieces are even more excited about Trump’s choice of an FBI director—Kash Patel.

Patel, a lawyer and conspiracy theorist, served in roles at the National Security Council, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Defense during Trump’s previous term.

During Sunday’s broadcast of a state TV show The Evening With Vladimir Solovyov—a program that Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly watches on a regular basis—host Vladimir Solovyov rejoiced about Trump’s picks.

“What an excellent team is coming along with Trump! Not with respect to Ukraine, but as far as everything else goes. If they are allowed to get in, they will quickly dismantle America, brick by brick. They are so great!” he said.

After airing a clip of Patel threatening to upend the FBI’s operations, Solovyov continued, “Trump’s nominee to head the FBI, Kash Patel, is simply on fire... He’s tremendous! Really, really good.”

Fifth Column Update Mid-March

 Our latest book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses foreign influence and Trump's attack on democracy.  Russia helped Trump through 2020.  As Russia began its latest invasion of Ukraine, Trump lavished praise on Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. 

 David Corn at Mother Jones:

On March 3, as Russian military forces bombed Ukrainian cities as part of Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion of his neighbor, the Kremlin sent out talking points to state-friendly media outlets with a request: Use more Tucker Carlson.

“It is essential to use as much as possible fragments of broadcasts of the popular Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who sharply criticizes the actions of the United States [and] NATO, their negative role in unleashing the conflict in Ukraine, [and] the defiantly provocative behavior from the leadership of the Western countries and NATO towards the Russian Federation and towards President Putin, personally,” advises the 12-page document written in Russian. It sums up Carlson’s position: “Russia is only protecting its interests and security.” The memo includes a quote from Carlson: “And how would the US behave if such a situation developed in neighboring Mexico or Canada?”

The document—titled “For Media and Commentators (recommendations for coverage of events as of 03.03)”—was produced, according to its metadata, at a Russian government agency called the Department of Information and Telecommunications Support, which is part of the Russian security apparatus. It was provided to Mother Jones by a contributor to a national Russian media outlet who asked not to be identified. The source said memos like this one have been regularly sent by Putin’s administration to media organizations during the war. Independent media outlets in Russia have been forced to shut down since the start of the conflict.

.@CawthornforNC:

“Zelenskyy is a thug. Remember that the Ukrainian government is incredibly corrupt and is incredibly evil and has been pushing woke ideologies.”

h/t @WRAL pic.twitter.com/cf3sew7MOp

— The Republican Accountability Project (@AccountableGOP) March 10, 2022

Tulsi Gabbard is now spreading Russian disinformation about biolabs in Ukraine. It’s only a matter of time before this gets picked up by Russian propaganda outlets, as it has so many times before. pic.twitter.com/exi6VZAO7w

— Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D (@RVAwonk) March 13, 2022

Russian Media Still Love Trump, Like Gabbard, Hate Biden

 In Defying the Odds, we discuss social media, fake news, and Russian involvement in the 2016 campaign.   The update  -- recently published --includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms.

Julia Davis at WP:

The historic impeachment proceedings against President Trump are big news in Russia. And there is little question which side the government — or the influential TV networks it controls — is on.

Asked about the impeachment hearings, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov coyly replied: “It’s none of our business, we would prefer not to comment.” But he then immediately contradicted himself by attempting to discredit the inquiry: “Let’s just say that there are a lot of far-fetched things, various scandalous stories, where Russia was mentioned, where, in fact, there are very few — negligibly few — facts that have any relation to truth and reality. We’re not going to comment on everything happening right now with the impeachment.”

Kremlin-funded Russian state television has openly sided with Trump throughout the Ukraine scandal and even during the events that led up to it. For months on end, Dmitry , the host of a Sunday news show called “Vesti Nedeli” (or “The Weekly News”) on state-controlled television station Rossiya-24, encouraged Trump’s push for a Ukrainian investigation of former vice president Joe Biden and his son, as well as the groundless theory that Ukraine — not Russia — interfered in U.S. presidential elections in 2016.

Clint Watts at the Foreign Policy Research Institute:

To understand Russia’s upcoming influence and interference activities, I offer an alternative approach: read and listen to what Russia says publicly first before scouring piles of social media data in search of their trolls. Whether it’s 2016 or 2020, the Kremlin doesn’t hide its opinions on who it’d like in the White House. Analysis of overt foreign propaganda provides essential reconnaissance for searching out covert social media influence. Collation of Kremlin talking points about candidates also helps to distinguish international disinformation from domestic disinformation and misinformation.

To understand where, why, how and for whom Russia might interfere in the 2020 presidential election, the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s (FPRI) Foreign Influence Election 2020 (FIE 2020) Project has assembled a research team to read, analyze and report on what Kremlin state-sponsored news outlets say with regards to the 2020 U.S. election and the presidential candidates.

The FIE 2020 Project’s first batch of analysis examines the following question:
“What does Russian state media say about the Democratic candidates?”

The research team analyzed 1,711 Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik News articles from January 1 to November 10, 2019 that pertained to the 2020 presidential election (705 RT stories, 1,006 Sputnik News stories). Those 1,711 stories hosted 2,772 mentions of either the president, Republican candidates or Democratic candidates for president in 2020. More than half of those mentions referenced President Trump, which will be analyzed in a separate upcoming post. The team also logged an additional 319 mentions of former presidents and presidential candidates, which will be analyzed separately as well. Mentions were evaluated as “neutral,” “favorable” of the candidate or “unfavorable” of the candidate. (For more on the FIE 2020 methodology, see here.)

...

Russian outlets clearly do not like former Vice President Biden

• Of the 331 times Biden surfaced in RT and Sputnik News, 53% of the mentions were negative.
• Biden received the most mentions of any Democratic candidate and is the only candidate in the entire presidential field to receive more negative mentions than neutral mentions, or than neutral mentions and positive mentions combined.
• For Russia thus far, Biden is to 2020 what Hilary Clinton was to 2016.

...'
Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is the overwhelming favorite of Kremlin news outlets

• Since January 1, 2019, Gabbard has been mentioned 61 times, ranking sixth in total mentions just behind O’Rourke.
• Gabbard is the only candidate assessed to receive more positive mentions (28) than negative mentions (6), and more positive mentions (28) than neutral mentions (27).