Matt Taibbi: The Smoking Gun That Indicts Obama Is the December 10, 2016 Story In The NY Times And Washington Post

RealClear Politics ^ | 23 Jul, 2025 | Tim Hains, Megyn Kelly, Matt Taibi

[MtnClimber]

Megyn Kelly and Matt Taibbi look at the documents released by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard that President Trump says implicate President Obama in "treason."

MATT TAIBBI: I understand the confusion about this. I don't think that the report as it was released did a particularly good job of explaining what exactly the significance of these documents was. But they were very significant.

If you remember before the election, there was a story in The New York Times, for instance, on October 31st, saying, "FBI sees no link between Russia and Trump and the election." This was sort of what officials were telling people in the media. There were a few fringe attempts to kind of work the Steele dossier material—this full-on Trump-Russia conspiracy narrative—into the media, but for the most part, they didn't get there.

After the election, it was the same thing until this moment on December 9th, 2016, when Barack Obama convened this meeting, ordered a new intelligence assessment, and then immediately that same night, there were leaks from the administration telling people that there had been interference by Russia specifically to help Donald Trump.

MEGYN KELLY: Let me stop you right there. Let me just stop you right there.

So they call this meeting with all the Obama top people, and the new revised PDB has been issued yet—no revised Intelligence Community Assessment has happened yet. The last thing that happened in the intel community was, "We're going to tell them that there really was no significant Russian interference, at least insofar as election apparatus goes." And the FBI said, "We're out, we're going to issue our own." And then Clapper said, "All right, let's just pause everything." Then everybody gets together.

That night, right after that, before any revised intel happened—before anything happened—they began

[ryderann]

All you have to do is look at the video from the 2016 Inauguration Day when Obama hosted the Trumps in the White House quarters. It was obvious that Obama knew he was in trouble. The fear was palpable.

[Carl Vehse]

Kharis13 @5: "We just need ONE honest lefty journalist to sniff a Pulitzer here."

The phrase "honest lefty journalist" is an oxymoron.

[Alberta's Child]

I'll take it one step further ...

I may never be 100% certain of this, but I am at about a 90% certainty right now: What outraged the Obama-Clinton cabal more than anything else was that the Trump team knew they were under surveillance, and took advantage of this by using it to feed false information to the CIA-FBI people in the Obama administration who were leading this.

[FamiliarFace]

Which makes this 100x worse than Watergate.

[maddog55]

Matt Taibbi: The Smoking Gun..

Will he apologize when once again when no one is arrested, convicted and sentenced?

I’m sick of hearing all this shxt about smoking guns, bombshell evidence etc. It’s all a f’n scam where nothing gets done.

[rdcbn1]

Yup, Both Obama and Clinton manufactured the Russia narrative to cover up their own personal malfeasance

[1Old Pro]

I may never be 100% certain of this, but I am at about a 90% certainty right now:

I'm 100% certain that we don't know the half of just how corrupt Obama and Hillary and their minions were.

[bigbob]

Gowdy isn’t a journalist. I’d watch Matt Taibbi as a candidate for that Pulitzer - he’s a former democrat voter and lefty but he’s been redpilled and reports the facts objectively. He is the one Musk turned over the “Twitter Files” to to show how that platform had been biased against conservative views.

[MtnClimber]

I agree with your evaluation. Also the surveilance continued, using FISA warrant renewals, long after Trump was in office.

[milagro]

Fox News aired Tulsi Gabbard’s speech yesterday, and the info about Obama’s role in “Russia-gate” was down right damning!
Like many Freepers, I stopped watching Fox News several years ago after they seemed to be anti-Trump.
But now for—the most part—most their programs are mainly pro-Trump, especially those hosted by Harris Faulkner, Laura Ingraham and Greg Gutfeld.

[gloryblaze]

A two-fer.

[cuz1961]

the co-conspiracists MSM ?

They colluded , they were in on it, they are culpable IMHO

They need to go down with the rest.

[woodbutcher1963]

Actually Matt Taibbi is a liberal and based on past experience he is also an honest journalist investigative reporter.

So, he very well could be that candidate for the Pulitzer Prize for reporting on this.

[poinq]

Matt’s best point is that the stories in the press were released immediately. Full stories showed up in all papers immediately the next day. So, they were pre-written.

[KSCITYBOY]

btt

[MrRelevant]

Matt Taibbi is about as close as were going to get….. Godspeed young man.

[ClearCase_guy]

bfl

[TBP]

The Democrat hate cult will simply dismiss this and scream “RUSSIAN ASSET!” like they do with any facts that undermine their conspiracy theories and their drive for absolute power.

#TheLeftHatesYou #TheyWantYouDead #TheyCallItCompassion

[South Dakota]

Watergate on steroids?

Or LBJ bugging Nixon’s jet

[ChessExpert]

I followed enough to be convinced. Obama was briefed that there was no evidence that Trump colluded with Russia. Obama says, “wrong answer.” Even before a re-assessment took place, the administrations leaks to everyone that Trump and Russia colluded to make Trump President.