It’s been five days since Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released a bizarre report that alleged that Donald Trump’s Russia scandal was the result of a “treasonous conspiracy.” The document was quickly discredited, with independent analyses characterizing Gabbard’s report as “ludicrous.”
Donald Trump has nevertheless seized on the absurd claims, insisting that the DNI report represents “proof” that Barack Obama, among others, is “guilty” of “treason.”
Most congressional Republicans haven’t been quite as hysterical as the president, but if the White House was counting on its GOP allies to read from the approved script, it didn’t have to wait too long to see the usual suspects playing their assigned roles.
Sen. Ron Johnson, who’s never met a conspiracy theory he didn’t like, told The Hill, “I want the press to be honest. I want Pulitzer Prizes to be returned. They were either duped or complicit in pushing that false narrative that put America in political turmoil for years.”
As is often the case with the Wisconsin Republican’s claims, this didn’t make any sense. News organizations covered the consensus findings of U.S. intelligence agencies, special counsel Robert Mueller and his team’s investigation, and the conclusions of the Republican-led Senate intelligence Committee, all of which proved that the core elements of Trump’s Russia scandal were correct. Indeed, none of their findings has been discredited — by Gabbard or anyone else.
The senator’s comments came on the heels of a related claim from House Speaker Mike Johnson, who apparently didn’t read the DNI report before promoting it. “DISMANTLING THE DEEP STATE!” the Louisiana Republican wrote online. “New evidence from [Gabbard] confirms what we’ve long known: The Russia hoax was a political hit job manufactured by Obama officials and weaponized by intel agencies to take down President Trump.”
But Gabbard’s report didn’t “confirm” anything of the kind. Johnson was peddling fiction.
Perhaps the most notable response, however, came from House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan. The right-wing Ohio Republican wrote via social media:
We told you about the Russia hoax for years. [Gabbard] confirmed it. Why is the media silent?
Obviously, those who claim the Russia scandal is a “hoax” are wrong. It’s equally obvious that the suggestion Gabbard has somehow “confirmed” far-right assumptions about the scandal is absurd.
But I was especially interested in Jordan asking about the relative silence from major independent news organizations.
For observers mired in far-right fever swamps, this must be confusing. “The nation’s director of national intelligence uncovered evidence of a coup!” knee-jerk MAGA partisans have said. “Obama committed treason! One of the biggest political scandals in a generation was discredited! Where are the front-page headlines?” But what these questions overlook is the inconvenient fact that news organizations didn’t ignore Gabbard’s report. Rather, news organizations did what Jordan, Trump and too many Republicans did not: They read Gabbard’s report and noticed how pitiful it is. NBC News, for example, noted the degree to which Trump’s DNI tried to “rewrite history.” The Washington Post published a fact-check report that highlighted the many glaring flaws in Gabbard’s findings. Philip Bump, who spent years covering the underlying scandal at the Post, described Gabbard’s conclusions as “ludicrous.” An analysis from The Bulwark explained, “[E]ven a cursory look at the actual substance of Gabbard’s dramatic claims shows … a nothingburger. There is no actual substance. Instead, there is blatant sleight of hand and manipulation of evidence.” Jordan asked, “Why is the media silent?” But the media hasn’t been silent: It’s just presented Trump and his sycophants with facts they don’t want to hear.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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