Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence in President Donald Trump’s administration, released a long-repressed House Intelligence Committee report July 23, documenting the efforts of FBI and CIA bosses — under the presidency of Barack Obama — to fabricate and use claims that Donald Trump was a Russian agent to try to destroy him.
Using the fraudulent Steele dossier paid for by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, spy bosses smeared Trump as a tool of Moscow. Their goal was to derail his presidential campaign. Christopher Steele, a former British spy, authored the dossier.
When that failed, the House report explains, Obama got FBI and CIA spy bosses to repackage the claim, continuing the “Russian collusion” witch hunt. Former FBI Director Robert Mueller was brought in to stage-manage a two-year-long effort to impeach Trump.
This use of the rulers’ top spy agencies for a partisan political attack dealt blows to vital constitutional protections workers need. In addition to pillorying Trump, the Democrats hoped the “investigation” would refurbish the image of the FBI. While they failed to bring Trump down, their campaign led to the imprisonment of several of his political associates.
The 2020 House report released by Gabbard had been kept buried by the Joseph Biden administration. Gabbard said it shows that Obama and officials in his administration were directly involved in the Democrats’ moves, based on an “assessment that they knew was false.” She argues their conduct was “treasonous.” Gabbard referred the report to Attorney General Pamela Bondi for possible criminal prosecution. Hours later Bondi announced a Justice Department “strike force” was being formed to conduct an inquiry.
This new use of the Justice Department to target political opponents, alongside calls by some Republicans for appointment of a special counsel to probe Obama, echo the methods used by Democrats in their attempt to try to drive Trump out of politics.
Attempts like these to criminalize and frame up political opponents by either of the capitalist rulers’ two main parties is dangerous for the working class. Whoever is the target today, it is working people who will be in the crosshairs tomorrow.
FBI, CIA drive to frame Trump
The House report shows that in 2016 FBI and CIA leaders repeatedly reported that in fact Moscow had “neither the intent nor capability to impact the outcome of the US election,” a July 23 press release from Gabbard’s office says.
But the House report then says that when this assessment was presented to Obama on Dec. 8, 2016, he forbid its publication. The next day he convened a meeting with, among others, CIA Director John Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. Obama urged them to rush out a new report highlighting “Russian Election Meddling” before Trump took office.
Brennan insisted the new report include the widely discredited Steele dossier. When top CIA officials complained the dossier was unsubstantiated and shouldn’t be used, he called them up short. “Yes, but doesn’t it ring true?” he said, insisting it be included.
The new Obama-initiated intelligence report, with the Steele dossier’s unproven lurid accusations attached, was published in January 2017.
Ex-FBI chief is made special counsel
Just a few months after Trump took office, Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Mueller special counsel, tasked with investigating Moscow’s election interference.
All so-called special counsels preside over open-ended fishing expeditions free from constitutional constraints. They have the power to prosecute anyone they accuse of “interfering” with their probe and to compel witnesses to testify or face prison.
After nearly two years Mueller was forced to admit there was no evidence Trump colluded with Moscow.
Along the way, Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, campaign deputy chairman Rick Gates and National Security Adviser Michael Flynn were prosecuted under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. This witch-hunt law, adopted on the eve of the second imperialist world war, was first used to target the Socialist Workers Party for building opposition to U.S. entry into that war.
Mueller’s probe was followed by two failed attempts to impeach Trump.
Trump claimed July 22 Obama was the “ringleader” of the witch hunt. Obama called that claim “ridiculous.”
But Trump also pointed out that because of him, Obama has immunity from prosecution. Last year the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Trump, like all presidents, has wide-ranging immunity from prosecution for acts connected to their work in the White House.
Gabbard’s release of the House committee report provides a few more details about what has been public knowledge for years — Democrats used the Justice Department, FBI and CIA to try to overturn the 2016 election.
She’s part of the Republican administration’s moves to cobble together a similar politically motivated “investigation” against Obama today.
Working people must oppose the efforts of both the Democrats and Republicans, in their pursuit of partisan advantage, to toss aside constitutional protections of free speech, association and assembly and other liberties.