Trump Admin - DNI Gabbard
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ontheriver
Well-Known Member
I must admit I was wrong about Tulsi. My bad. Get em girl!
Yesterday, the New York Times ran an unintentionally encouraging article headlined, “Trump Revokes Security Clearances of 37 Former and Current Officials.” The subhead sniffed that it was just “the latest effort by the Trump administration to shift the public’s attention to the 2016 election.”
It wasn’t just security clearances. Gabbard ordered all contracts with the thirty-seven deep staters canceled as well, and ordered their credentials to be surrendered (if any). Tulsi named every person in her letter —including someone the Times called a “senior C.I.A. analyst currently serving undercover.” Not anymore.
Deploying classic Times faux journalism, senior reporters Maggie Haberman and Julian Barnes couldn’t scrounge up a single Republican voice, just Democrats murmuring that Trump’s “only” motive was to cover up Jeffrey Epstein. That’s right: the paper of record is peddling the theory that Trump handpicked 37 intel officials at random to distract the public from Epstein. How that math works, they didn’t say.
The theory advanced by the Times’s sources —without evidence— is a murky BlueAnon conspiracy theory that Trump specifically yanked these 37 intelligence officials’ playing cards for no reason was because it would trick the public into forgetting about the Epstein scandal. Somehow. The story wasn’t super clear about how.
“Gabbard’s move to yank clearances from a seemingly random list… is a reckless abuse… and another sad attempt to distract from the administration’s failure to release the Epstein files,” sighed Senator Mark Warner (D-Va.).
Sad!
Or, possibly, it was because these folks’ names were strewn throughout the newly declassified RussiaGate intelligence documents, under those little black redaction boxes. In other words, consequences. Just saying.
The Times’ story was a confusing hash of conflicting conspiracy claims. On the one hand, to prove how arbitrary Trump is, it argued forcefully that many of the people on the list had “reputations for nonpartisan work” (source undisclosed), some were promoted during Trump 1.0, and “not all had been critical of the Trump administration” (no examples provided). But on the other hand, it also argued that the whole affair was a Stalinesque partisan purge.
Well, which is it?
Tulsi’s purge wasn’t completely unprecedented. In 1977, with the intelligence community still reeling from the Church Committee’s findings, Carter’s newly appointed CIA director, Admiral Stansfield Turner, announced a massive downsizing of the Agency’s covert human operations branch in favor of signals intelligence. An eye-watering 212 clandestine service officers —mostly Cold War spies and field operatives— were given pink slips. Because the notices issued on the last day in October, CIA officers bitterly nicknamed it the Halloween Massacre.
Not since the Halloween Massacre has Washington seen so many nameless operatives cashiered in a single stroke.
Either way, one thing is clear. For the first time in recorded memory, accountability is loudly knocking on the deep state’s door.
www.coffeeandcovid.com
It wasn’t just security clearances. Gabbard ordered all contracts with the thirty-seven deep staters canceled as well, and ordered their credentials to be surrendered (if any). Tulsi named every person in her letter —including someone the Times called a “senior C.I.A. analyst currently serving undercover.” Not anymore.
Deploying classic Times faux journalism, senior reporters Maggie Haberman and Julian Barnes couldn’t scrounge up a single Republican voice, just Democrats murmuring that Trump’s “only” motive was to cover up Jeffrey Epstein. That’s right: the paper of record is peddling the theory that Trump handpicked 37 intel officials at random to distract the public from Epstein. How that math works, they didn’t say.
The theory advanced by the Times’s sources —without evidence— is a murky BlueAnon conspiracy theory that Trump specifically yanked these 37 intelligence officials’ playing cards for no reason was because it would trick the public into forgetting about the Epstein scandal. Somehow. The story wasn’t super clear about how.
“Gabbard’s move to yank clearances from a seemingly random list… is a reckless abuse… and another sad attempt to distract from the administration’s failure to release the Epstein files,” sighed Senator Mark Warner (D-Va.).
Sad!
Or, possibly, it was because these folks’ names were strewn throughout the newly declassified RussiaGate intelligence documents, under those little black redaction boxes. In other words, consequences. Just saying.
The Times’ story was a confusing hash of conflicting conspiracy claims. On the one hand, to prove how arbitrary Trump is, it argued forcefully that many of the people on the list had “reputations for nonpartisan work” (source undisclosed), some were promoted during Trump 1.0, and “not all had been critical of the Trump administration” (no examples provided). But on the other hand, it also argued that the whole affair was a Stalinesque partisan purge.
Well, which is it?
Tulsi’s purge wasn’t completely unprecedented. In 1977, with the intelligence community still reeling from the Church Committee’s findings, Carter’s newly appointed CIA director, Admiral Stansfield Turner, announced a massive downsizing of the Agency’s covert human operations branch in favor of signals intelligence. An eye-watering 212 clandestine service officers —mostly Cold War spies and field operatives— were given pink slips. Because the notices issued on the last day in October, CIA officers bitterly nicknamed it the Halloween Massacre.
Not since the Halloween Massacre has Washington seen so many nameless operatives cashiered in a single stroke.
Either way, one thing is clear. For the first time in recorded memory, accountability is loudly knocking on the deep state’s door.
☕️ MORAL HOLIDAYS ☙ Wednesday, August 20, 2025 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠
Tulsi axes 37 intel vets; DOJ’s Ed Martin tells Letitia James to quit; NYT panics over pastors endorsing; admits Dem crime blunders but 'never mind'; and covid court cases bloom like spring daisies.
www.coffeeandcovid.com
PJay
Well-Known Member
I hope we are...people need to know the Truth...then the evil people must be punished.
"DNI Tulsi Gabberd says they will be Declassifying MORE Documents, this time, on things that “have never seen the Light of Day Before” What could she possibly be referring to? One of President Trump’s sleeper campaign promises, without hesitation, has been to Declassify 9/11 Files… are we there yet?" We are getting close… so so very close. Can you feel it?
"DNI Tulsi Gabberd says they will be Declassifying MORE Documents, this time, on things that “have never seen the Light of Day Before” What could she possibly be referring to? One of President Trump’s sleeper campaign promises, without hesitation, has been to Declassify 9/11 Files… are we there yet?" We are getting close… so so very close. Can you feel it?
Most of it has been classified to conceal incompetence or culpability of the involved players, in other words CYA. Classified should only apply to things that if known would cause harm/damage to the nation - not embarrassment to some bureaucrat.
Intel Community Frame Another “Anonymous” Inspector General Complaint Against DNI Tulsi Gabbard
The Wall Street Journal is out with a very specific hit piece against Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. The article is 100% Intelligence Community insider lawfare against DNI Gabbard; however, in addition to being completely bogus the construct of the hit itself is very revealing.
The first CIA operation (2017) involved the National Intelligence Council (NIC sub-silo) and a Russian intelligence analyst, Eric Ciaramella. That was the creation of the fraudulent Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) written from within the NIC at the direction of John Brennan. The second CIA operation was the 2019 fraudulent Trump impeachment effort, again originating from Russian analyst Eric Ciaramella (anonymous whistleblower) who was represented by legal counsel Andrew Bakaj.
The current attack against DNI Tulsi Gabbard involves her May 2025 move to take the National Intelligence Counsel out of the CIA, and remove the heads of the agency, Chairman Mike Collins (friend of Mike Morrell) and Deputy Chair Maria Langan-Riekhof. {GO DEEP}
Within the current “leak”, structurally another false narrative, the Wall Street Journal frames yet another anonymous intelligence community whistleblower complaint, this time against DNI Tulsi Gabbard. Notice: the “anonymous whistleblower” is again represented by legal counsel Andrew Bakaj. The anti-Trump intelligence officials are running the same play.
As noted by DNI Spokesperson Olivia Coleman, “This is a classic case of a politically motivated individual weaponizing their position in the Intelligence Community, submitting a baseless complaint and then burying it in highly classified information to create 1) false intrigue, 2) a manufactured narrative, and 3) conditions which make it substantially more difficult to produce “security guidance” for transmittal to Congress.”
WASHINGTON—A U.S. intelligence official has alleged wrongdoing by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard in a whistleblower complaint that is so highly classified it has sparked months of wrangling over how to share it with Congress, according to U.S. officials and others familiar with the matter.
The filing of the complaint has prompted a continuing, behind-the-scenes struggle about how to assess and handle it, with the whistleblower’s lawyer accusing Gabbard of stonewalling the complaint. Gabbard’s office rejects that characterization, contending it is navigating a unique set of circumstances and working to resolve the issue.
[…] The complaint was filed last May with the intelligence community’s inspector general, according to a November letter that the whistleblower’s lawyer addressed to Gabbard. The letter, which was viewed by The Wall Street Journal, accused Gabbard’s office of hindering the dissemination of the complaint to lawmakers by failing to provide necessary security guidance on how to do so.
[…] Gabbard answered written questions about the allegations from the inspector general’s office, a senior official at the spy agency said. That prompted the acting inspector general at the time, Tamara Johnson, to determine the allegations specifically about Gabbard weren’t credible, the official said.
[…] The complaint includes a separate allegation about “an office within a different federal agency,” upon which the watchdog’s office wasn’t able to make a credibility determination, the representative for that office said. The Wall Street Journal couldn’t determine the identity of the other federal agency. (read more)
The Wall Street Journal cannot determine the “other federal agency” provenance, but we can.
The office was the “National Intelligence Council” and the ‘other federal agency’ was/is the CIA. The background context is exactly as we previously outlined {SEE HERE}.
DNI Tulsi Gabbard has been removing the Intelligence Community tentacles used to control political policy. The Intelligence Community and the downstream stakeholders hate her.
Here’s where it becomes important to understand the full context of what DNI Gabbard did in May 2025 to infuriate the IC. The CIA was running another impeachment operation when DNI Tulsi Gabbard intercepted it.
The issue involved President Trump and Marco Rubio designating Tren de Aragua (TdA) as a terror group operating as part of the coordinated effort by Venezuela dictator Nicolas Maduro. To undermine Trump/Rubio the National Intelligence Council within the CIA created analysis that contradicted the White House claim.
Tulsi Gabbard Providing FBI Oversight Isn’t ‘Dangerous To Our Democracy’
Every so often there’s a piece of content in The New York Times or a similar publication that’s meant to create suspicion but without saying exactly why, usually for the purpose of politicizing something mundane. The story this week about National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard being on site during an FBI operation in Atlanta is one of those pieces of content, but in this case, the reason for the manufactured suspicion is obvious.
The Times on Monday wrote that it was “unusual” for Gabbard to appear at an FBI field office following the agency’s seizure of 2020 ballots from an election center in the ever-so-seedy Fulton County. You know, the place where election officials just admitted to improperly certifying hundreds of thousands of ballots in violation of the election rules. “[H]er continued presence has raised eyebrows given that her role overseeing the nation’s intelligence agencies does not include on-site involvement in criminal investigative work,” the article, reported by a grand total of three people, said.
Gabbard was there, at least in part, to facilitate a call between President Trump and the field agents, the story said. That call was characterized by unnamed sources in the article as “a pep rally or a coach giving an encouraging halftime speech to his players,” but only after the Times has assured readers how “unusual” and “outside the bounds of normal law enforcement procedure” all of this is.
For good measure, the Times quoted a former “senior Justice Department official” to characterize the episode as “extremely dangerous to our democracy and a shocking abandonment of years of sound policy …” I don’t know if I’ll ever have another night of peace knowing what I know now.
To the extent that anything is “unusual” or “a shocking abandonment of years of sound policy,” it’s that this president takes a direct interest in attempts by his political opposition to sabotage his victories and thwart his agenda — the thing voters elected him to enact. That often means being physically present himself or deputizing someone he trusts to be there for him.
That Tulsi Gabbard 'Whistleblower' Story Just Completely Fell Apart
Of course, even the story pre-amendment still had way too many holes to take seriously. What country was this "individual associated with foreign intelligence" from? For example, if a British intelligence officer speaks to the White House, that wouldn't be a scandal. The lack of detail was the point, though. This "whistleblower" complaint and the Democrats promoting it wanted people to assume it's Russia, China, or some other American adversary.
As to the other aspect of the story, which accused Gabbard of covering up the complaint for almost a year, the DNI quickly stepped in to counter that, saying she had only seen it two weeks prior because it was being held by Biden-era Inspector General Tamara Johnson.
If this "scandal" stopped there, it'd already be a dud. It didn't stop there, though. Notably, Gabbard's office tried to warn The Guardian that they were being misled by the "whistleblower" and that their story and headline were not accurate.
Sure enough, The Guardian has now put out a "clarification" that isn't a clarification at all. Instead, it's an outright correction that completely nukes their story.
NSA “Whistleblower” Attorney Andrew Bakaj Appears on Video Making False Claim About “Underlying Intercept”
Allison Gill is an ally of the Lawfare network and recently sat down for an interview with NSA whistleblower attorney Andrew Bakaj; the same attorney used by former CIA whistleblower Eric Ciaramella.
This interview appears to be taking place after Bakaj revised his statements to The Guardian forcing them to rewrite the central claim of the leak he provided. The Guardian rewrote their article removing the key claim within the intelligence intercept that a foreign intelligence person was in contact with a person close to President Donald Trump.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Bakaj-1.jpg
The revision now states:
[…] “The Guardian reported earlier on Saturday that the phone conversation was between a person associated with foreign intelligence and a person close to Trump, based on Bakaj’s recollection of the complaint, which he confirmed over multiple calls. However, after publication, Bakaj said he misspoke.
He clarified his understanding of the complaint in a statement: “The NSA picked up a phone call between two members of foreign intelligence involving someone close to the Trump White House,” he said. “The NSA does not monitor individuals without a reason.” {citation}
This is not a small “revision,” it is essentially a rewrite of the central component to the whistleblower complaint. As it is now clarified two foreign people were intercepted talking about a person who knows Donald Trump. This could be any two foreign people gossiping or talking about anyone who is in the orbit of Donald Trump. That explains why intelligence analysts reviewed the NSA intercept, disregarded it and said it is hearsay likely just ‘gossip” according to New York Times reporting.
However, that said, Andrew Bakaj then appears on a podcast with Allison Gill during their effort to put traction to the claims, and Bakaj repeats the false statement. See video at 7:45:
…”So, in the spring of last year there was intelligence that was gathered by an agency that captured, um, activity that was being conducted by someone close to the President.”…
This is the same lie the whistleblower’s attorney Andrew Bakaj told The Guardian; that someone close to the president was a participant in the “activity.” This is demonstrably false through all other reporting.
The complaint alleges two foreign individuals were intercepted talking to each other about a person who Bakaj defines as close to the president, on the subject of Iran.
It could simply be two Germans or Israelis talking about Iran and wondering what Devin Nunes thinks about it.
The entire predicate claim is silly. Foreign officials and foreign intelligence officials talk to each other all the time about Trump and or his people.
This complaint is a fabrication, and the fact that the NSA Whistleblower included the TSSCI material in the complaint, literally outlining who was intercepted talking, is the reason why the complaint could not be shared or circulated without careful guidance by the DNI.
The whistleblower did this on purpose. If the whistleblower wanted to share his complaint with more people, he could have just avoided including the TSSCI aspect.
This is intelligence community Lawfare in action.
Tulsi Gabbard to Declassify Explosive “Top Secret” Document Schiff Locked Away in Capitol SCIF Years Ago
The House Intelligence Committee voted on Tuesday to release transcripts from 2019 hearings with the former Intelligence Community Inspector General, Michael Atkinson.
“The 2019 hearings were held to examine Atkinson’s role in an alleged whistleblower complaint, which ultimately led to Democrats’ first impeachment efforts against President Trump in December 2019,” the House Intel Committee said.
“The great deal of widespread speculation about the Atkinson classified hearing transcript is indicative of the American people’s complete and warranted mistrust of the Intelligence Community,” said Chairman Crawford.
“In far too many instances, the IC hides behind the veil of overclassification. Sometimes sunlight is the best disinfectant. As part of the Committee’s continued effort to balance the transparency the American people deserve and the need to protect sensitive national security information, we hope that the release of these transcripts allows the American people to make their own determinations. As Chairman, I remain committed to ensuring this Committee, where possible, is transparent as the IC works to rebuild trust with the American people,” he said.
CIA snitch Eric Ciaramella filed a whistleblower complaint in August 2019 over a July 25 phone call President Trump had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky alleging Trump engaged in quid pro quo and pressured Zelensky to investigate the Biden crime family.
Changes were made to the whistleblower form to include watercooler talk, gossip and second-hand information and ICIG Michael Atkinson defended the changes.
Atkinson admitted in a previous statement that the agency changed its own whistleblower rules *because of the anti-Trump complaint* from CIA snitch Eric Ciaramella.
Although, the form should not have been accepted based on second-hand information and because it was about the President of the United States (who is not in the IC), Atkinson accepted the complaint.
The whistleblower later attempted to edit the form he originally provided.
The original form stated that the whistleblower did not talk to Congress before filing the form but after it was discovered that he had met with Adam Schiff’s team in Congress, the whistleblower attempted to edit his form.
Then-House Intel Chairman Adam Schiff lied when he stated publicly, “we have not spoken directly with the whistleblower.”
Some of us were paying attention and already knew that was happening. I get worn out with these dipshit social media people and their "bombshells".
This was potentially huge news, the first rumblings of a massive political earthquake. Late last week, Fox News reported, “ODNI sends criminal referrals to DOJ for ex-IG, whistleblower tied to Trump impeachment.” In a rare example of a “somebody said something” story that was actually newsworthy, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard issued a remarkable —if not historic— official DNI press release that declassified more new documents related to Impeachment I. Here’s the staggering title, right from the website:
She didn’t just declassify some documents. Tulsi simultaneously made criminal referrals to the DOJ against several key actors involved in the 2020 Impeachment. It was a poisoned dagger shivved into the heart of the conspiracy to defeat President Trump using politicized lawfare: “they manufactured and manipulated the whistleblower process to create the pretext for an impeachment of the sitting President.”
It’s dense— replete with murky names, a calendar’s worth of dates, and documents bearing bureaucratic titles as long as small novels. Let’s walk through it without getting in the weeds.
This round’s starring character was former Intelligence Community Inspector General (IC/IG) Michael Atkinson, who served during the middle years of Trump 1.0 until the President fired him. The IC/IG is supposed to be a neutral, internal watchdog for the entire intelligence community, and definitely not a policy or political actor. One of those “nonpartisan” career professionals we keep hearing about but never seem to find.
Atkinson is the key federal official who formally launched the RussiaGate impeachment hoax. Under the banner of his “nonpartisan” office, he made a “referral of urgent concern” to Congress in 2019, alleging there was “credible evidence” that President Trump blackmailed Kiev’s clownlike president Zelensky. Atkinson claimed that Trump intimidated Zelensky to investigate the Biden Crime Family’s nefarious activities in Ukraine, which Atkinson claimed was intended to influence the upcoming election, presumably by exposing Biden’s illegal hijinks to the public.
In other words, Atkinson’s narrative was that Trump leveraged his office and the tools of U.S. foreign policy, including by pausing aid (the stick) and dangling a White House visit (the carrot), to induce Ukraine to investigate the Bidens. The dual charge: abuse of power combined with election interference. The worst.
That is old, well-worn news. Now’s where it gets really interesting based on the new document disclosures— which itself was a historic declassification unlike anything that has ever before emerged from the DNI’s secretive offices. For the very first time in ODNI’s 21-year history, a sitting DNI has made criminal referrals against her own office’s former leadership.
Tulsi declassified Atkinson’s investigative file. What she found —and what the file shows— is that the “nonpartisan” inspector general was anything but nonpartisan. He twisted the rules into a mall pretzel shape to fit the “crimes.” He ignored the actual transcript of Trump’s call with Zelensky, and instead relied on four unnamed “whistleblowers”— none of whom heard the call and all of whom were easily impeachable for obvious political bias.
The whistleblowers were all partisan Democrats with a history of Trump opposition, none of whom were on the call. Atkinson knitted that into a “referral of urgent concern” that spurred the President’s impeachment and sidelined his agenda.
And he bent the rules like Uri Geller bending a drawer full of spoons. First, and maybe most egregiously, the IG’s office had a long-standing rule for whistleblowers: no hearsay. That means whistleblowers could only report things they actually knew about— and nothing that they “heard” from someone else. That rule was actually printed right on the form.
But none of his whistleblowers had personal knowledge of the call. One whistleblower actually wrote, “I do not have direct knowledge of private comments or communications by the President.” The second whistleblower claimed to have read the transcript, and wrote they “would not have been able to get from ‘point A to Z’ the way the (first) Whistleblower did.” A third whistleblower —also going from the transcript— wrote that they had to “read between the lines,” and that his/her perception of a quid pro quo only “became clear in hindsight.” Just guessing.
This kind of second-hand testimony was prohibited right on the face of the form. So Atkinson just … changed the form. He simply deleted the prohibition against hearsay. Kind of like changing the definition of “vaccine” on the CDC website.
And, even though all the ‘witnesses’ all based their conclusions on readings of the call transcript— Atkinson never read the transcript himself. He hid behind the sofa. He avoided the transcript like it was a pair of Jehovah’s Witnesses ringing his front doorbell.
Despite all that, Atkinson quickly made a criminal referral to the DOJ. DOJ looked at it and found “no urgent concern,” and kicked it back. Atkinson shrugged, re-packaged it for Congress —no actual investigation needed— and the impeachment game was afoot.
Now let’s look at Atkinson’s “whistleblowers”— who were just people who’d read the transcript of the Trump-Zelensky call. The “call” included a crowd of officials and employees approximately the size of a high-school football team. On the Ukrainian side, Zelensky had an unspecified number of aides and advisors. The US side included Trump, White House notetakers, NSC staff, and other senior aides. Trump later declassified and released the transcript.
Nobody who was actually on the call ever objected, became a whistleblower, or testified against Trump. None of them were even interviewed by Atkinson before he made his impeachment referral. House and Senate Democrats took the deeply flawed report and ran with it.
Instead, the first and main witness told Atkinson: (1) he was a registered Democrat. (2) He “worked closely with Vice President Biden” and was involved in Biden’s Ukraine businesses. (3) He said he was “the target of right-wing bloggers … and conspiracy theorists.” (4) He coordinated with Adam Schiff’s House Intelligence Committee staff before filing the complaint.
Despite all those clues, Atkinson later testified that “I never considered the whistleblower to be politically biased.” During the 2020 impeachment trial, Democrats refused to let Trump’s lawyers ask about the Whistleblower’s bias and motives.
The second ‘whistleblower’ was just as flawed. (1) They admitted in a witness interview to being a “co-author of the 2017 ICA”— the discredited source of the RussiaGate allegations. (2) They admitted to working ‘alongside’ now-disgraced FBI agent Peter Strzok (of the “insurance policy” fame). (3) They advised interviewers of being “disappointed everyday by policy decisions”— meaning the President’s policy decisions.
Basically, Atkinson rounded up some of the most virulently partisan Democrats in the deep state —who weren’t on the call— and used them to manufacture out of thin air a criminal allegation against the sitting President of the United States. That’s apparently all it took to launch the coup.
In the long, secretive, buttoned‑down history of the U.S. intelligence bureaucracy, Tulsi Gabbard’s press release landed like a meteor crashing into a mobile home. This isn’t just another dry “we take these concerns seriously” memo. It’s the sitting DNI accusing her own predecessors and official watchdogs of running a years‑long coup and then stapling criminal referrals to the front for good measure.
It’s a big deal. I’m not sure there’s anything remotely historically comparable. On behalf of the entire ODNI, Tulsi is not just admitting past wrongdoing. The Office is explicitly alleging that senior IC players and an Inspector General deliberately “manufactured and manipulated” intelligence and whistleblower processes to overturn the democratic result of a national election, and did it in an official press release labeled as advancing “transparency and accountability.”
In a single stroke, the ODNI dragged the secret world’s dirty laundry into the DMV’s fluorescent lights, naming names, declassifying transcripts that Congressional Democrats literally kept in a safe, and inviting Todd Blanche’s DOJ to go hunting for crimes in the same skunkworks that helped impeach the President.
For an institution that normally communicates in passive voice and footnotes, this is the bureaucratic equivalent of flipping the lights on at 3 a.m. in the deep state’s nightclub and handing the bouncers over to the cops. Future historians will circle April 13, 2026, in red ink— as the day the intelligence community publicly turned its detective flashlight back on itself.
If the Atkinson file confirms what conservative reporters have been saying for six years —that Schiff’s staff was coordinating with the Whistleblower (Eric Ciaramella, pictured above) before the referral was filed— then Schiff’s 2028 hopes will die, too.
One cannot help but notice the timing. Seven months remain before the midterms. The Florida grand jury is continuing its work. Historically, the DOJ has avoided bringing politically-sensitive indictments within two months of an election. But Biden’s DOJ trashed that ‘unwritten rule’ in the Trump cases.
When South Florida Judge Cannon pressed Special Prosecutor Jack Smith’s team on the 60‑day rule, his lead prosecutor flatly said putting Trump on trial in the run‑up to the election was consistent with the Justice Manual and that the “60‑day rule” doesn’t appear anywhere in the DOJ’s formal rules. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
www.coffeeandcovid.com
She didn’t just declassify some documents. Tulsi simultaneously made criminal referrals to the DOJ against several key actors involved in the 2020 Impeachment. It was a poisoned dagger shivved into the heart of the conspiracy to defeat President Trump using politicized lawfare: “they manufactured and manipulated the whistleblower process to create the pretext for an impeachment of the sitting President.”
It’s dense— replete with murky names, a calendar’s worth of dates, and documents bearing bureaucratic titles as long as small novels. Let’s walk through it without getting in the weeds.
This round’s starring character was former Intelligence Community Inspector General (IC/IG) Michael Atkinson, who served during the middle years of Trump 1.0 until the President fired him. The IC/IG is supposed to be a neutral, internal watchdog for the entire intelligence community, and definitely not a policy or political actor. One of those “nonpartisan” career professionals we keep hearing about but never seem to find.
Atkinson is the key federal official who formally launched the RussiaGate impeachment hoax. Under the banner of his “nonpartisan” office, he made a “referral of urgent concern” to Congress in 2019, alleging there was “credible evidence” that President Trump blackmailed Kiev’s clownlike president Zelensky. Atkinson claimed that Trump intimidated Zelensky to investigate the Biden Crime Family’s nefarious activities in Ukraine, which Atkinson claimed was intended to influence the upcoming election, presumably by exposing Biden’s illegal hijinks to the public.
In other words, Atkinson’s narrative was that Trump leveraged his office and the tools of U.S. foreign policy, including by pausing aid (the stick) and dangling a White House visit (the carrot), to induce Ukraine to investigate the Bidens. The dual charge: abuse of power combined with election interference. The worst.
That is old, well-worn news. Now’s where it gets really interesting based on the new document disclosures— which itself was a historic declassification unlike anything that has ever before emerged from the DNI’s secretive offices. For the very first time in ODNI’s 21-year history, a sitting DNI has made criminal referrals against her own office’s former leadership.
Tulsi declassified Atkinson’s investigative file. What she found —and what the file shows— is that the “nonpartisan” inspector general was anything but nonpartisan. He twisted the rules into a mall pretzel shape to fit the “crimes.” He ignored the actual transcript of Trump’s call with Zelensky, and instead relied on four unnamed “whistleblowers”— none of whom heard the call and all of whom were easily impeachable for obvious political bias.The whistleblowers were all partisan Democrats with a history of Trump opposition, none of whom were on the call. Atkinson knitted that into a “referral of urgent concern” that spurred the President’s impeachment and sidelined his agenda.
And he bent the rules like Uri Geller bending a drawer full of spoons. First, and maybe most egregiously, the IG’s office had a long-standing rule for whistleblowers: no hearsay. That means whistleblowers could only report things they actually knew about— and nothing that they “heard” from someone else. That rule was actually printed right on the form.
But none of his whistleblowers had personal knowledge of the call. One whistleblower actually wrote, “I do not have direct knowledge of private comments or communications by the President.” The second whistleblower claimed to have read the transcript, and wrote they “would not have been able to get from ‘point A to Z’ the way the (first) Whistleblower did.” A third whistleblower —also going from the transcript— wrote that they had to “read between the lines,” and that his/her perception of a quid pro quo only “became clear in hindsight.” Just guessing.
This kind of second-hand testimony was prohibited right on the face of the form. So Atkinson just … changed the form. He simply deleted the prohibition against hearsay. Kind of like changing the definition of “vaccine” on the CDC website.
And, even though all the ‘witnesses’ all based their conclusions on readings of the call transcript— Atkinson never read the transcript himself. He hid behind the sofa. He avoided the transcript like it was a pair of Jehovah’s Witnesses ringing his front doorbell.
Despite all that, Atkinson quickly made a criminal referral to the DOJ. DOJ looked at it and found “no urgent concern,” and kicked it back. Atkinson shrugged, re-packaged it for Congress —no actual investigation needed— and the impeachment game was afoot.
Now let’s look at Atkinson’s “whistleblowers”— who were just people who’d read the transcript of the Trump-Zelensky call. The “call” included a crowd of officials and employees approximately the size of a high-school football team. On the Ukrainian side, Zelensky had an unspecified number of aides and advisors. The US side included Trump, White House notetakers, NSC staff, and other senior aides. Trump later declassified and released the transcript.Nobody who was actually on the call ever objected, became a whistleblower, or testified against Trump. None of them were even interviewed by Atkinson before he made his impeachment referral. House and Senate Democrats took the deeply flawed report and ran with it.
Instead, the first and main witness told Atkinson: (1) he was a registered Democrat. (2) He “worked closely with Vice President Biden” and was involved in Biden’s Ukraine businesses. (3) He said he was “the target of right-wing bloggers … and conspiracy theorists.” (4) He coordinated with Adam Schiff’s House Intelligence Committee staff before filing the complaint.
Despite all those clues, Atkinson later testified that “I never considered the whistleblower to be politically biased.” During the 2020 impeachment trial, Democrats refused to let Trump’s lawyers ask about the Whistleblower’s bias and motives.
The second ‘whistleblower’ was just as flawed. (1) They admitted in a witness interview to being a “co-author of the 2017 ICA”— the discredited source of the RussiaGate allegations. (2) They admitted to working ‘alongside’ now-disgraced FBI agent Peter Strzok (of the “insurance policy” fame). (3) They advised interviewers of being “disappointed everyday by policy decisions”— meaning the President’s policy decisions.
Basically, Atkinson rounded up some of the most virulently partisan Democrats in the deep state —who weren’t on the call— and used them to manufacture out of thin air a criminal allegation against the sitting President of the United States. That’s apparently all it took to launch the coup.
In the long, secretive, buttoned‑down history of the U.S. intelligence bureaucracy, Tulsi Gabbard’s press release landed like a meteor crashing into a mobile home. This isn’t just another dry “we take these concerns seriously” memo. It’s the sitting DNI accusing her own predecessors and official watchdogs of running a years‑long coup and then stapling criminal referrals to the front for good measure.It’s a big deal. I’m not sure there’s anything remotely historically comparable. On behalf of the entire ODNI, Tulsi is not just admitting past wrongdoing. The Office is explicitly alleging that senior IC players and an Inspector General deliberately “manufactured and manipulated” intelligence and whistleblower processes to overturn the democratic result of a national election, and did it in an official press release labeled as advancing “transparency and accountability.”
In a single stroke, the ODNI dragged the secret world’s dirty laundry into the DMV’s fluorescent lights, naming names, declassifying transcripts that Congressional Democrats literally kept in a safe, and inviting Todd Blanche’s DOJ to go hunting for crimes in the same skunkworks that helped impeach the President.
For an institution that normally communicates in passive voice and footnotes, this is the bureaucratic equivalent of flipping the lights on at 3 a.m. in the deep state’s nightclub and handing the bouncers over to the cops. Future historians will circle April 13, 2026, in red ink— as the day the intelligence community publicly turned its detective flashlight back on itself.
If the Atkinson file confirms what conservative reporters have been saying for six years —that Schiff’s staff was coordinating with the Whistleblower (Eric Ciaramella, pictured above) before the referral was filed— then Schiff’s 2028 hopes will die, too.
One cannot help but notice the timing. Seven months remain before the midterms. The Florida grand jury is continuing its work. Historically, the DOJ has avoided bringing politically-sensitive indictments within two months of an election. But Biden’s DOJ trashed that ‘unwritten rule’ in the Trump cases.
When South Florida Judge Cannon pressed Special Prosecutor Jack Smith’s team on the 60‑day rule, his lead prosecutor flatly said putting Trump on trial in the run‑up to the election was consistent with the Justice Manual and that the “60‑day rule” doesn’t appear anywhere in the DOJ’s formal rules. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
☕️ CUSTODY AND CONTROL ☙ Monday, April 20, 2026 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠
The Navy confiscates Iran’s favorite sanctions-busting freighter, Tulsi hands DOJ the impeachment receipts, Erica Schwartz tests MAHA’s blood pressure, more.
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