Tulsi Gabbard on Russiagate Hoax Evidence and How She's Reforming Politicized Intelligence Agencies

The conversation opens by introducing Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence and a former Democratic congresswoman. In the framing, she is "Both loved and heavily criticized for her independent thinking." The opening clips include a statement about "how deep the rot is within the intelligence community" and the need for it "to be rooted out."

One host sets up the main topic: a series of declassified files about what the hosts call the Russiagate hoax. The host asks for a high-level account of the years of accusations that Trump was an agent of Putin, and whether those accusations were made up and by whom.

The answer starts with why the public should care. The argument is that headlines calling Trump a Putin puppet, or saying he colluded with Putin to win in 2016, seemed credible to ordinary viewers because they appeared to rest on intelligence. The released documents, by this account, show how intelligence "can be actually manipulated intentionally" to show something "that is not reflective of the truth at all." The account goes further and calls the documents the foundation for an effort to undermine Trump's presidency and the outcome of the 2016 election.

The timeline starts with the 2016 campaign. It describes a crowded Republican primary, Trump's nomination against Hillary Clinton, and a claim that Clinton seeded the allegation of collusion between Trump and Russia. When a host asks what "seeded" means, the answer points to FBI-declassified documents described as the Durham Annex. It also cites FISA warrants that the FBI under Comey obtained to surveil Carter Page and others around the Trump campaign. The account calls that surveillance illegal and names the investigation as "Cross Bear Hurricane" (rendered that way in the transcript).

According to this account, intelligence assessments during the campaign "almost uniformly assessed that Putin did not have either the intent or the capability to hack the outcome of the U.S. election." After Trump won in November 2016, intelligence officials reportedly briefed Congress in the same terms: no evidence that Russia had affected the outcome.

A central piece of evidence is the President's Daily Brief of December 8. The account describes the PDB as a product for the president with a small readership, built from contributions across the intelligence community. The December 8 brief reportedly matched earlier assessments that Russia had not interfered in the outcome. It was pulled "hours before it would have hit then President Obama's desk." The draft, the finalized version, and an email saying to pull it back are said to be posted on ODNI.gov.