Imagine waking up today as a reporter, editor or publisher at a news outlet that helped perpetuate the Russia collusion hoax.

What would you do, now that it has been exposed as a “seditious conspiracy to overthrow the government and democracy of the United States” by the Obama administration in smearing, framing and trying to take down a duly elected president?

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released more than 100 documents Friday exposing that the Obama administration put out an intelligence assessment in January 2017 that Russia had helped elect President Trump – totally contrary to an assessment just a month before, and using the debunked Steele dossier that intelligence staffers warned the administration not to rely on.

That fabricated assessment became a predicate for the red-herring Mueller probe.

Gabbard says the documents show the scandal reaches Obama himself.

Certainly, any reporter, editor or publisher who unknowingly perpetrated the hoax, if they have any integrity at all, should be apoplectic today with fury and embarrassment. The Democrats and their Deep State actors have completely humiliated those journos and discredited their news organizations.

It appears such news outlets – the New York Times and Washington Post both won Pulitzers for their “deeply sourced, relentlessly reported coverage” of the hoax – were played like puppets. They were absolute tools of the cynical, arguably criminal, intelligence agencies that concocted what is inarguably the biggest political scandal in American history.

Unless they did it all knowingly.

History will surely condemn any news media that went along with it and allowed seditionists inside our government to rip this country apart to topple a president.

Where are the media’s retractions? Where are the apologies? Where are the exclamations of outrage at having been so blatantly lied to by our government?

Where is the unceremonious return of dubious awards for having participated in what is being called a “years-long coup”?

Moreover, it must be asked: Did those reporters, editors and publishers participate in the shocking scandal unwittingly or knowingly?

Conservatives on X are convinced it’s the latter.

“The Main Stream Media stood in lockstep with Former President Obama in promoting the Russiagate hoax,” one poster writes, speaking for many. “They are co-conspirators to treason and should be treated as such.”

“The real collusion was MEDIA collusion,” writes Paul Sperry, senior reporter  at RealClearInvestigations.com. “Never in the history of Washington scandals has the media been a PART of the scandal. In the #Russiagate hoax, they were co-conspirators–and now they’re part of the cover-up. Most outrageous, CNN +MSNBC have even employed the main culprits.”

“The last piece of the puzzle will be to illuminate the Mainstream Medias’ complicity,” one poster adds. “Their cooperation was a [necessity], as a vector to deceive the public. They also must be held responsible for their active role in the conspiracy to overthrow a sitting president.”

“Complicit reporters and news orgs must be part of a wide conspiracy prosecution,” writes commentator Julie Kelly.

The media’s collective ho-hum about this scandal since Friday – in which a former president is accused of cooking up fake intelligence to frame an incoming president as a Russian asset – is telling enough.

“People asking why this isn’t getting coverage at a legacy media level today – is a self answering question,” writes Rasmussen Reports. “Close to 100% of US legacy media are direct co-conspirators.”

It’s more than silence and disinterest the media may be guilty of. In some cases, they may have acted as the Deep State’s attack dogs.

“In 2017, when I discovered that the Obama Administration had directed the IC to unmask members of the Trump Campaign, I faced a full-on attack from the media (a conspirator),” writes Ezra Cohen, former acting Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security.

“At that moment, I remember thinking: why would the media be attacking me for discovering an intelligence oversight violation? Shouldn’t the media be focused on those who illegally used the IC to target a political opponent? 

“As time went on, and more information was discovered, it became clear that the media’s reaction (on behalf of their co-conspirators) was an attempt to stop me and others from discovering more of the iceberg i.e. the full extent of the plot to take down President Trump. Eight years later, I’m glad that the public is starting to understand what was really happening.”

Americans’ trust in the news media was already cratering before Friday’s historic revelation: According to Gallup, trust in media collapsed from 72% in 1976 to just 31% last year.

What the media outlets who perpetrated this hoax do next will go a long way in determining whether the media’s self-immolation continues.

If you or your news outlet were duped by the Obama administration into advancing the Russia hoax, admit it. Now.

Otherwise your silence will be both deafening and damning.