Last summer, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard unveiled a report with a title that read, “Declassified Evidence of Obama Administration Conspiracy to Subvert President Trump’s 2016 Victory and Presidency.” In an accompanying press release, the hapless DNI added, “The information we are releasing today clearly shows there was a treasonous conspiracy in 2016 committed by officials at the highest level of our government.”

In reality, the report showed no such thing, and independent analyses characterized Gabbard’s report 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.” Officials from Democratic and Republican administrations urged the public to recognize Gabbard’s conspiracy theories for what they were: obvious nonsense.

The DNI sent her findings to Donald Trump’s Justice Department nevertheless, and wouldn’t you know it, the hyperpoliticized DOJ took Gabbard’s vacuous findings quite seriously.

Eight months later, a suspiciously similar process is unfolding. MS NOW reported:

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has sent criminal referrals to the Justice Department related to a former intelligence community inspector general and a whistleblower whose complaint helped trigger the first impeachment of President Donald Trump.

The whistleblower complaint, deemed credible at the time by then-Inspector General Michael Atkinson, set off a chain of events that culminated in Trump’s impeachment in 2019 for pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate his then-political rival Joe Biden. The Senate later acquitted Trump in a largely party-line vote. 

The criminal referral was first reported by Fox News. A spokesperson for Gabbard’s office confirmed to MS NOW that she had sent a criminal referral to the Justice Department but declined to provide further details. 

Rep. Jim Himes, the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, responded to the developments with a written statement that read, “The whistleblower who made Congress aware of Donald Trump’s efforts to extort Ukraine and falsely smear his opponent followed all the rules and demonstrated courage and principle. No amount of sycophantic lickspittle will erase the fact that the ‘perfect’ call was released, and the American people could see Trump’s corruption and abuse of power firsthand.”

The Democrat from Connecticut added, “This apparent criminal referral will amount to nothing because no misconduct occurred, but what it will do is chill future whistleblowers from coming forward to Congress with confidence that the law will protect them. I suspect that is precisely the point.”

As this week got underway, Gabbard took aim at the extortion scandal that led to Trump’s first impeachment, claiming that nefarious “deep-state actors within the Intelligence Community” secretly conspired to “usurp the will of the American people and impeach the duly-elected president of the United States,” whom she characterized as a poor and unsuspecting victim.

As was the case last summer, her presentation — to the extent that one could credibly call it that — failed entirely to make a compelling case, which helped explain why the DNI’s allegations went largely ignored.

But by all appearances, the point wasn’t about exposing actual wrongdoing. Rather, Gabbard — no doubt aware of scuttlebutt about her possible firing after 14 months of failures, controversies and embarrassments — was likely trying to impress her audience of one.

There’s reason to believe it worked.

The president used his social media platform on Wednesday night to tout the DNI’s latest partisan antics, which followed two items posted earlier in the week, both of which were built around the idea that Gabbard’s latest foolishness should help the president’s crusade to “expunge” his first impeachment — a priority he has pushed intermittently for years.

Gabbard is engaging in such pitiful antics because her job likely depends on it. As for whether similarly situated loyalists at Main Justice are prepared to maintain the charade, watch this space.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

The post Tulsi Gabbard impresses her audience of one with another indefensible abuse appeared first on MS NOW.

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From MS Now.