Attorney General Pam Bondi just dropped a bombshell by launching a "strike force" to dig into declassified intelligence that paints the Obama administration’s 2016 Trump-Russia probe as a house of cards built on shaky, if not outright fabricated, evidence.
According to the New York Post, this latest move comes after a revealing 44-page report from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, exposing serious missteps and potential political bias in the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) ordered by President Barack Obama, which set off years of unfounded collusion narratives against Donald Trump.
Let’s rewind to December 2016, when Obama, in an Oval Office meeting, directed the creation of the 2017 ICA to assess Russian influence in the 2016 election.
At the time, then-CIA Director John Brennan oversaw the report that claimed Moscow favored Trump over Hillary Clinton—a narrative that ignited endless media firestorms and investigations, even though special counsels Robert Mueller and John Durham later debunked it.
Fast forward to 2020, a House Intelligence Committee report—launched by former Chair Devin Nunes and finalized that September—subsequently raised red flags about the ICA’s “egregious” errors and its reliance on discredited sources like the Steele dossier, despite senior intelligence officials issuing early warnings.
Meanwhile, Brennan, along with former FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, reportedly pushed to attach the dubious dossier to the ICA, even as veteran CIA officers repeatedly warned about its credibility.
When officials confronted Brennan about the dossier’s credibility, he allegedly responded flippantly, “Yes, but doesn’t it ring true?” That remark, sir, may feel compelling, but feelings aren’t facts. This dismissive attitude toward hard evidence is precisely why public trust in our institutions has plummeted.
On Wednesday, Director Gabbard released a report alongside Bondi’s announcement. The report pulls no punches—she directly accuses the intelligence community of producing the ICA as a politically charged maneuver, driven by unusual directives from President Obama and his senior appointees. This assertion directly contradicts claims from Obama-era officials that the Steele dossier played no role in the assessment.
Gabbard didn’t mince words. She declared, “Obama directed an intelligence community assessment to be created, to further this contrived false narrative.” If her statement holds true, it points to a deliberate effort to undermine a duly elected president—a gut punch to anyone who values democratic integrity over partisan agendas.
Adding to the mess, the House report disputes the ICA’s assertion that Vladimir Putin preferred Trump, instead suggesting Putin expected Clinton to win and held back compromising material—like DNC communications about Clinton’s alleged health issues or a campaign email linking Trump to Russian hackers—for post-election leverage.
A bipartisan Senate Intelligence report from 2020, however, backed the original ICA’s view of a Russian preference for Trump, with Senator Mark Warner (D-Va.) dismissing Gabbard’s findings as “ridiculous” and a “reckless act.” But when reports contradict each other this sharply, shouldn’t we be asking who benefits from the fog of confusion?
All three reports—Obama’s ICA, the House findings, and the Senate assessment—do agree on one thing: Russia lacked the intent or capability to sway the 2016 election outcome, which makes the years-long obsession with collusion seem more like a political witch hunt than a pursuit of justice.
Now, with Bondi’s strike force in play, the Department of Justice is partnering with Gabbard to review evidence of “substandard” intelligence and outright fabrications, while the FBI has already opened investigations into Brennan and Comey for potential criminal actions tied to the probe.
Bondi herself promised, “We will investigate these troubling disclosures fully and leave no stone unturned to deliver justice.” That’s a pledge conservatives have longed to hear after years of feeling like the system was weaponized against their chosen leader, though skeptics on the left will surely cry foul over perceived partisanship.
As this unfolds, it’s worth noting the obstruction faced by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rick Crawford and his predecessor in releasing the 2020 report, a reminder that getting to the truth often means wading through a swamp of bureaucratic resistance—something no American, left or right, should tolerate.
