Silence of the Lambs: The Media Ignores Declassified Documents on the Manufacturing of the Russian Conspiracy

Consider this story: An outgoing president and his top officials are told that there is no evidence of Russian collusion or influence in the national election. The White House then moved to suppress the intelligence assessment and reverse the conclusions, while false claims were leaked to the press.

That is not just a major but a Pulitzer-level story, right?

Apparently not. The legacy media has largely ignored the declassified evidence and possible criminal referral on the Obama administration seeding the Russian collusion narrative just before the first Trump Administration.

It supports allegations in the real Russian conspiracy: the conspiracy to create a false Russian collusion scandal to undermine the election and administration of Donald Trump in 2016.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard suggested last week that intelligence was “manufactured and politicized” despite countervailing conclusions from American intelligence that there was no collusion or influence on the election.

Critics have noted that CBS only covered the story to refute it.

The release of this information is historically significant, as it finally allows the public to see how this effort began with the Clinton campaign and was then actively cultivated by Obama officials.

We previously learned that the Clinton campaign spent millions to create the infamous Steele dossier and then hid their role from the public.

Attorney Marc Elias, the general counsel to the Clinton presidential campaign, pushed the false Alfa Bank conspiracy. (His fellow Perkins Coie partner, Michael Sussmann, was indicted but acquitted in a criminal trial.)

During the campaign, reporters asked about the possible connection to the campaign, but Clinton campaign officials denied any involvement in the Steele Dossier. When journalists discovered after the election that the Clinton campaign hid payments for the Steele dossier as “legal fees” among the $5.6 million paid to Perkins Coie, they met with nothing but shrugs from the Clinton staff.

New York Times reporter Ken Vogel said at the time that Elias denied involvement in the anti-Trump dossier. When Vogel tried to report the story, he said, Elias “pushed back vigorously, saying ‘You (or your sources) are wrong.’” Times reporter Maggie Haberman declared, “Folks involved in funding this lied about it, and with sanctimony, for a year.”

Elias was back when John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, was questioned by Congress on the Steele dossier and denied categorically any contractual agreement with Fusion GPS. Sitting beside him was Elias, who reportedly said nothing to correct the misleading information given to Congress.

Not only did Clinton reportedly spent over $10 million on the report, but Obama was briefed that she was going to create a Russian collusion narrative as part of her campaign.

Aware of that Clinton effort, these new documents suggest that Obama and his aides actively sought to affirm the allegations just before Trump’s inauguration. The FBI then ramped up its own efforts despite also being told that the Steele dossier was unreliable and contradicted.

I disagree with the use of the charge of treason being thrown around with this release. Based on this evidence, it would be hard to make a criminal case against Obama, let alone the specific charge of treason. However, there are good-faith allegations raised about prior congressional testimony of key players in the Obama Administration. There may be viable criminal allegations ranging from perjury to obstruction to making false statements to federal investigators.

It is too early to gauge the basis for possible criminal charges. However, the release of this new evidence is both historically and legally significant. There is now a legitimate concern over a conspiracy to create this false narrative to undermine the incoming Administration. It proved successful in derailing the first Trump. By the time the allegations were debunked, much of the first term had been exhausted. That is worthy of investigation and the public has a right to expect transparency on these long withheld documents

The silence of the legacy media is hardly surprising, given the key role the media played in spreading these false claims. Most media outlets find themselves in an uncomfortable position, having fostered an alleged conspiracy for years. Most reporters are not keen on making a case against themselves in spreading of these false claims.