There are numerous obstacles in the way of the Russiagate reappraisal that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is seeking, perhaps none larger than the lingering dispute over Jeffrey Epstein.
The timing of Gabbard’s Russia documents release will lead many to dismiss what she has uncovered as simply an attempt to help President Donald Trump change the subject as his administration faces mounting pressure to release more Epstein-related information to the public.
“Critics said the White House was resurrecting old conspiracy theories to distract from the furor over Trump’s failure to release the Epstein files,” writes NBC News’s Andrea Mitchell. Mitchell was referring here to Gabbard’s release of documents pertaining to civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, but only after several paragraphs dismissing the Trump-Russia report in similar terms.
Her colleague Garrett Haake agreed, saying “the White House is dismissing” the Epstein matter “as fake news and seemingly moving to change the subject by attacking former President Obama over his handling of the 2016 Russia election interference investigation.”
“Tulsi Gabbard is not competent enough to serve as DNI,” posted first-term Trump national security adviser John Bolton. “She’s distracting the public from the Epstein files to try and save her job.” He said much the same thing on CNN.
It is true that Trump’s political superpower is his ability to persevere through negative news cycles and eventually shift public attention to a subject more favorable to him. That could be what is happening here, as the Epstein files have dogged him far longer than he would like. Perhaps that is what is happening here. Epstein isn’t a great news story for Trump, even if no new unflattering information comes to light, because it is a reminder of the Access Hollywood season of the president’s life.
But it is also possible that Russiagate-Epstein causality runs in the opposite direction: that Trump knew Gabbard’s documents trove was coming and is irritated that much of his base is paying attention to Epstein instead.
“I would say these files were made up by [former FBI Director James] Comey and [former President Barack] Obama, made up by the Biden [administration], and we went through years of that with the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax,” Trump told reporters earlier this month, referring to the Epstein files.
That seemed like an odd, if not suspicious, line of defense at the time. Maybe less so if Trump knew Gabbard was on the verge of alleging a “gross politicization and manipulation of intelligence by the Obama administration intended to delegitimize President Trump even before he was inaugurated,” as she did in the White House briefing room on Wednesday.
There are certainly some similarities between the media coverage of Trump-Russia and Trump-Epstein, though it remains to be seen whether there is more to the latter story.
Either way, Trump’s Epstein problem makes some of his supporters want more out of Gabbard’s Russia revelations. MAGA wants Trump to hold powerful people accountable in a way that has never happened before. In their view, this hasn’t happened with Epstein. It didn’t happen with the “lock her up” chants about Hillary Clinton in 2016. And they are clamoring for it to happen to the Obama officials Gabbard said directed “the creation of an intelligence community assessment that they knew was false,” including “President Obama leading the manufacturing of this intelligence assessment.”
“Enough of the memes and the tough talk,” wrote conservative influencer Matt Walsh. “Go put these people in handcuffs.”
The ball will soon end up in the Justice Department’s court — the same department that has so far mishandled the Epstein situation.
Yet it is possible that debating the criminal culpability of various Obama officials, and especially trying to prosecute the former president himself, will actually distract from the core claims raised by Gabbard’s findings: that the evidence for Russia having pro-Trump motives for its 2016 election interference was weak and Obama’s national security team knew it.
The first contention could be easier to prove than the second. Both undermine any basis for consuming most of Trump’s first term in a failed attempt to prove Trump-Russia collusion. But it will be hard enough for Gabbard’s case to get a fair hearing in the court of public opinion, much less a court of law. The truth about the intelligence assessment that drove years of investigations and shoddy Trump-Russia coverage could easily get lost in the debate over whether it can accurately or legally be described as “treason.”
That train may have already left the station, however. The Epstein files fiasco may have done more to whet the base’s appetite for prosecuting powerful Democrats than a Russiagate reassessment will do to obscure the Epstein files.