CNN’s Jake Tapper Joins Russia Hoax Declassification Firefight #Political
Early coverage of the declassification of documents related to the Russia Hoax by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard proves the adage coined by internet sage David Burge: "Journalism is about covering important stories. With a pillow, until they stop moving.” Such is the case with CNN anchor Jake Tapper’s foray into the Russia Hoax firefight.
Watch his frame of the release prior to his interview of a House Intel Democrat, Rep. Jason Crow (CO):
JAKE TAPPER: In our "Law and Justice” lead, as the Justice Department was asking a judge about releasing grand jury transcripts on Jeffrey Epstein and President Trump was filing his lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal for a story about Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, the Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was releasing a report of her own on the 2016 election. Gabbard claiming that right after Trump won the 2016 election, the Obama administration's national security team, quote, "manufactured and politicized intelligence," unquote. That, she says, laid the groundwork for the FBI's Russia investigation. Gabbard alleges a quote, "treasonous conspiracy at the highest levels of government." Her assessment appears to conflate conclusions by the Senate Intelligence Committee that Russia interfered in the 2016 election through various information operations, conclusions by the intelligence community in general, and simultaneous assessments by the intelligence community that concluded the Russians did not hack into any votes or change the outcome of the election. In other words, there is the truth that Russia interfered but there is no evidence at all that Russia hacked into the election.
It bears noting that Tapper needed a little over a minute to set the frame for Crow, who would do another 3 minutes on the Russia Hoax. As was the case with Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation, the House Intel Democrat colloquy addressed none of the substance of the documents and what they reveal.
Unlike on Face the Nation, there was no speculation regarding a hypothetical prosecution of former President Barack Obama. Tapper’s frame was specifically crafted so as to elicit nothing more from Crow on the matter than multiple utterances of “this is a distraction from Epstein”.
A cynical news analyst might observe that a comprehensive doc drop narrative is still in its test stages, but will ultimately include an appeal to the authority of the 2020 Senate Intel report on the 2016 election. That is in itself a distraction, because the Russia Hoax was less about attempted hackings of election infrastructure than about accusations of active collusion, which the Mueller Report debunked.
Tapper’s lengthy frame was all for naught once Crow went off script and cautioned about the dangers of politicized intelligence, ultimately making the case for the declassification and document drop.
WHOOPS: House Intel Dem Jason Crow goes on Tapper, inadvertently makes the case for @DNIGabbard's Russia Hoax doc drop.
"But this is not without major risk. You know, listen, I was sent to war. in Iraq because of fabricated intelligence. I was sent to war as were many… pic.twitter.com/9oNpYr2R0a
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) July 22, 2025
Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned segment as aired on CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper on Monday, July 22nd, 2025:
JAKE TAPPER: In our "Law and Justice” lead, as the Justice Department was asking a judge about releasing grand jury transcripts on Jeffrey Epstein and President Trump was filing his lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal for a story about Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, the Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was releasing a report of her own on the 2016 election. Gabbard claiming that right after Trump won the 2016 election, the Obama administration's national security team, quote, "manufactured and politicized intelligence," unquote. That, she says, laid the groundwork for the FBI's Russia investigation. Gabbard alleges a quote, "treasonous conspiracy at the highest levels of government." Her assessment appears to conflate conclusions by the Senate Intelligence Committee that Russia interfered in the 2016 election through various information operations, conclusions by the intelligence community in general, and simultaneous assessments by the intelligence community that concluded the Russians did not hack into any votes or change the outcome of the election. In other words, there is the truth that Russia interfered but there is no evidence at all that Russia hacked into the election. Let's bring in Democratic Congressman Jason Crow. He's on the House Intelligence Committee. Congressman, this bipartisan Senate report that I alluded to also concluded that Russia did interfere in the 2016 election. Russia wanted Trump to win, but Gabbard said in her report referring to the Obama administration, quote, "Their goal was to usurp President Trump and subvert the will of the American people." What's your reaction to the report?
JASON CROW: Well, listen, what's actually going on here is pretty clear. You have Tulsi Gabbard, who's been out of favor with President Trump since the intelligence agency issued battle damage assessments of the Iran strike that were not consistent with what Donald Trump was saying. So she's been in hot water and been trying to get back into favor. And then you have a president -- and President Trump who wants people to talk about anything, anything other than the Epstein investigation, which he is very, very clearly worried about, the release of the Epstein files. So what's happening is Tulsi Gabbard's trying to work his way back into the good graces of Donald Trump by fabricating this conspiracy theory to try to placate Donald Trump. That's what this is all about.
TAPPER: I should note that I have reached out to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and made it clear that we'd love to have Director Gabbard on the show to talk about this conclusion that she reached. The Senate Intelligence Committee as you know, Congressman, spent years investigating all this. At the end, they also pinned the blame on Russia, a bipartisan conclusion led by Republicans in the majority on the committee. The chairman, Marco Rubio is now Trump's Secretary of State. If Gabbard's claims and her prosecutorial referrals have any truth, why are we hearing about it now more than eight years after the fact, instead of during the first Trump administration?
CROW: Yeah, this goes back to what's actually going on here. As you pointed out, a full and thorough bipartisan investigation that occurred during the first Trump administration by Donald Trump's Secretary of State, National Security Advisor, now Marco Rubio. And they had a whole administration to address this, and they did, actually, and the findings are pretty clear and pretty bipartisan. This is simply a distraction. They don't want people talking about the release of the Epstein files because Donald Trump is very, very worried about it. That is clear, which of course begs the question: why is he so worried about it? It makes me want to know, makes most Americans want to know. In fact, the overwhelming amount of Americans do want to actually know what's in those files. So they're trying to distract. But this is not without major risk. You know, listen, I was sent to war. in Iraq because of fabricated intelligence. I was sent to war as were many Americans. We spent $3 trillion, 20 years fighting wars that started based on fabricated intelligence, and this can end very poorly. So anytime you politicize an intelligence infrastructure like Donald Trump and Tulsi Gabbard are doing now, there are very real consequences to it.
TAPPER: I want to ask you about your attempt yesterday to visit an immigration detention facility in Colorado, which you represent in the House. ICE denied your entry, tell us more about that.
CROW: Yeah, so I attempted to conduct an unannounced congressional oversight visit to the detention center in my district, which is something that is specifically allowed under federal law. And the reason I know that is because I actually helped pass this law, because the last time I was denied entry to this facility was six years ago under the first Trump administration. And I said, this is crazy, a member of Congress should have access to a federal facility in her or his district. So we passed a law that specifically says members of Congress have immediate access to these facilities without any notice having to be provided. The administration unlawfully denied me yesterday, which of course begs yet another question. Why does this -- why does this administration desperately want to impede congressional oversight? What are they hiding? We know there's a lot of abuses. We know there's a lot of violations of due process. We know they don't want people to know what's going on in these facilities.
TAPPER: What do you make of the argument that your visit was unannounced, as you note, and also on a Sunday?
CROW: Well, that's the whole point, actually. The whole point of these unannounced visits and why we actually crafted the law the way that we did was because we learned over the last six years that when you announce visits, they dress it up, they clean it up. There's the whole dog and pony show. You get a very different look. When a member of Congress says, hey, next week we're coming to visit you all, you get a very different look to what's going on. And that happens at military bases, that happens at VA hospitals, that happens at ICE immigration facilities. It just happens, right? So we actually crafted a law that said, nope, oversight is really important here. We're going to actually carve out a legal excerpt that says unannounced visits under law. That's why we did it. And of course, that seems to be why this administration also wants to violate the law by not allowing us to do that because they don't want us to see what's going on.
TAPPER: Democratic Congressman Jason Crow of Colorado, thanks so much. Appreciate it.
from Newsbusters - Welcome to NewsBusters, a project of the Media Research Center (MRC), America’s leading media watchdog in documenting, exposing Follow News Busters
Red Pill Pharma A psychological pharmaceutical that unlocks logic and reason offering a second chance at individualism.
Sourced by the Find us on telegram. Real News for Patriots of the United States of America. We share content that re-affirms our soulful connection to light, Truth, and the Constitutional God given rights of Freedom and Liberty.
No comments