To hear some news outlets tell it – if they’re covering it at all – the release of damning documents implicating former President Barack Obama in a historic coup against his successor is a nothingburger.
“This is hardly information that we should be repeating. … I’m not sure that we should spend that much more time on it,” CNN’s chief national affairs correspondent Jeff Zeleny told the camera.
It’s a nothingburger with cheese, if you listen to CNN’s Kaitlan Collins – who even suggested Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released the formerly classified documents just to improve her standing with President Trump.
The false, pernicious story that Russia helped engineer Trump’s win in 2016 – a tall tale that documents allege Obama planted using intelligence manufactured out of thin air – has been debunked by Gabbard’s revelations.
Yet, many in the legacy media are saying there’s nothing to see here – meaning many Americans will have to educate themselves on this scandal apart from the legacy media.
“Simply ignore, turn off, delete, & unsubscribe from the outlets that lied to you, loudly, relentlessly, knowingly,” one popular X poster advised.
It’s likely Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley would agree – saying in an exclusive interview with The Heartlander on Wednesday that the scandal is monumental.
“It’s a big deal. I mean, it’s a really big deal,” Hawley summed up.
“And by the way, it vindicates … the special counsel, John Durham, who tried to prosecute some of these people who were part of the Russia hoax and the media laughed at him and said, ‘Oh, there’s nothing there.’
“Ah, well, all of these documents that Tulsi has put out corroborate everything that he was saying for years – which was that senior figures in the Obama administration, apparently up to and including the president himself, knew that the Steele dossier was fake. They knew that Hillary was trying to link Trump to Russia when, in fact, that wasn’t the truth. And then they went ahead and laundered all of those lies anyway.
“And they did it deliberately to undermine Donald Trump after he was elected, and frankly, to try to undermine the legitimacy of an election.
“I’ve never heard of another time in American history when a sitting president has tried to undermine an election that was just held. Obama didn’t even run in the election. And yet he’s out there saying it was false and fake, essentially allowing his intelligence agencies to put this stuff out because a foreign power controlled it.
“It’s all untrue, as it turns out, all fake. It was truly a hoax.
“I think there needs to be some accountability here. And I know that John Durham, back when he was prosecutor, tried to prosecute some of these people, couldn’t get them convicted.
“I hope that the DOJ now will try again and will bring stronger cases based on this evidence and will prosecute some of these people that frankly tried to undermine our elections.”
Still, conservatives elated that this scandal they’ve known about for years has suddenly broken into the mainstream are skeptical Republicans will actually seek arrests or convictions of the perpetrators.
Hawley says he understands the doubts.
“Absolutely. I’ve seen this for years, and I feel the same way. Think about it this way: you get all of the facts, you get them out there, and then it’s like, ‘All right, now the prosecutors need to go to work’ – and they just don’t do anything.
“I feel the same way, by the way, about Thomas Crooks and the attempted assassination of Trump a year ago. All of these whistleblowers came forward to me, risked their careers in many cases, we get the information out there; a year later, who’s been held accountable? Nobody’s been fired. Nobody’s been taken to task. None of it is public yet – none of the documents have been made public.
“So yeah, I mean, it’s extremely frustrating.
“Let’s not forget they lied to courts about this. They got illegal wiretaps because of this, and nobody’s been held accountable for any of it. And unless we hold people accountable, it’s going to happen again.”
