Four days after Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released documents outlining what she said was “overwhelming evidence” showing former President Barack Obama and his national security team “manufactured and politicized intelligence” after Trump’s 2016 victory, Karoline Leavitt took questions from White House reporters on her way back from a TV hit.
The press corps asked about Biden’s use of the autopen, the Epstein Files, and hostages in the Middle East. No one asked about the Russia Hoax.
Later that day, Leavitt would tell the Ruthless Podcast that she regretted not bringing up the major news that the reporters were missing.
“I’m so pleased to be asked about it, because I just did a gaggle out in front of the White House, with all the White House press corps, and not a single question came up about it,” Leavitt told the Ruthless Podcast.
“They don’t have any more questions to ask because they wrote all these stories, and they’re all perfectly sourced, and they were accurate. They won all of those prizes for them …” one of the hosts responded.
This wasn’t an isolated occurrence. A day later, Leavitt briefed the press and brought a special guest: Gabbard. The National Intelligence Director outlined what she had revealed about the Russia Hoax, and then Leavitt told reporters she would take questions.
Typically, there is much competition to get a question at a White House press briefing. Everyone has their hands raised. Some people shout at the press secretary, lean over each other, and even push their way to the front. I, with my assigned seat in the back of the briefing room, sit on a booster seat to give me a better chance at being seen.
But I didn’t need my booster seat that day. Few hands were raised. No one shouted. There was little interest from the press corps in Russiagate—even after Gabbard said she referred former President Barack Obama to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution.
At the Daily Caller, we pointed out that the Russiagate revelations did not make the front pages of the New York Times and Washington Post on July 24, the day they were released.
In 2018, both of these newspapers shared a Pulitzer Prize for their reporting on Russian election interference and collusion with the Trump campaign, which largely relied on anonymous sources. Now, the Pulitzer Prize Board of Directors faces a libel lawsuit brought by Trump over the validity of that prize.
Maybe the reason for this is that Obama’s team reportedly doesn’t want the press to go anywhere near the story: According to NBC News, Obama’s former aides are hoping to conceal the revelations revealed by Gabbard from the American public.
“The battle now is to play this even to make sure that thoughts don’t start to creep into more mainstream audiences,” a former Obama administration official told NBC News.
That same aide told the outlet that the former president’s camp is counting on “mainstream Republicans to listen to editorial boards and those in Congress who deemed the allegations against Obama as “beyond the pale.”
In that same vein, Ned Price, a Special Assistant to Obama on the National Security Council staff, penned an op-ed in Fox News, downplaying the Russiagate revelations, even calling the story “disinformation.”
“This wasn’t a piece I would have written for any mainstream or left-of-center outlet. This was designed solely and exclusively for Fox News, because that’s where this fire of disinformation is raging,” Price said in an interview. “I thought it was important … to inject facts into that very venue in the hope that at least a few people would read it and be exposed to what actually transpired in 2016.”
At that press conference with Leavitt last week, CNN’s Kaitlin Collins asked the press secretary if the director was releasing the documents to get back in the good graces of the president.
As Leavitt rejected Collins’ question and explained that Gabbard was only revealing the truth, a reporter in the back of the room attempted to cut Leavitt off.
“That’s not true, that’s not true,” the reporter shouted.