Time for another lesson in the Starkman Approved Theory, which holds there is almost always an inverse relationship between the lofty ideals people publicly profess and the values they actually live by. Today’s focus: the Democratic Party and their corporate media enablers, who long claimed to be the selfless guardians of American democracy—the last line of defense between Donald Trump and a tidal wave of tyranny.
To be clear, I’m no fan of Donald Trump. But the smug superiority of Democratic leaders and the unapologetic dishonesty of their media allies has always made me deeply skeptical of their moral preening. Unfolding developments lend further credence to the Starkman Approved Theory—and to my long-standing instincts.
On Friday afternoon, former Congresswoman and current Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard began releasing documents that, if authentic and representative of U.S. intelligence community activities during the final days of Barack Obama’s presidency, are deeply disturbing.
The materials pertain to the period before and after the 2016 presidential election and, if accurate, should enrage every American. They further discredit the already badly frayed Trump-Russia collusion narrative and, if proven legitimate, should finally compel the New York Times and Washington Post to return the Pulitzers they were awarded for promoting what increasingly appears to have been a hoax promulgated by senior government officials, possibly with Obama’s tacit urging and support.
Tellingly, I first learned about Gabbard’s documents release not reading the Times or the Post, but from a Substack column by journalist Matt Taibbi—published within hours of Gabbard’s disclosure.
Goldman Sachs expose
For those unfamiliar with Taibbi, he rose to national prominence for his blistering 2010 Rolling Stone exposé on Goldman Sachs, describing the firm as “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.” The story is easily one of the most impactful business pieces ever published, especially remarkable considering Taibbi wasn’t a financial journalist.
Until that article, Goldman Sachs enjoyed fawning coverage from business reporters who were either too timid or too enthralled to challenge the firm’s influence. Taibbi fell out of favor with the corporate media when he began calling out the corporate press’s sycophantic adherence to Democratic Party narratives, particularly their breathless promotion of the Trump-Russia collusion story.
Taibbi further enraged the media establishment when he published revelations from the so-called Twitter Files, which Elon Musk released after acquiring the platform. These internal communications exposed how the company’s prior management eagerly complied with Biden administration requests to censor posts critical of pandemic lock downs and mandated COVID vaccines.
As an aside note, Taibbi may also hold the distinction of being the only journalist in America to receive a personal visit from the IRS.
Taibbi had me hooked right out of the gate in his latest column when he highlighted a December 8, 2016 draft Presidential Daily Briefing in which U.S. intelligence officials concluded that “Russian and criminal actors did not impact recent U.S. election results by conducting malicious cyber activities against election infrastructure”:
The “did not impact” statement was damning in its clarity. But it never saw the light of day, allegedly suppressed by a senior official in the office of then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper:
The following day, top Obama administration officials—including Clapper, CIA Director John Brennan, Susan Rice, John Kerry, Brian McKeon, Loretta Lynch, Andrew McCabe, and Avril Haines—convened as part of the National Security Principals Committee. After the meeting, they each received an email titled “POTUS Tasking on Russia Election Meddling,” directing them to produce a new assessment per the President’s request.
According to Taibbi, intelligence officials then began leaking “blatantly false” claims about a secret assessment concluding that Russia intervened in the election to affect the outcome. These leaks persisted until January 6, when a hastily compiled Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) was released. That ICA became the foundation for the discredited so-called Steele Dossier containing damning allegations about Trump and triggered an avalanche of panting media stories linking Trump and Russia in what became an unprecedented political scandal.
Selective documents?
Allow me to interject with a lesson from my own experience representing former New York Stock Exchange CEO Dick Grasso during the witch hunt led by disgraced former New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. Spitzer alleged that Grasso was paid too much by the multimillionaires overseeing what was then the world’s most respected stock market.
In a particularly slimy maneuver, Spitzer’s office leaked a document to the New York Post revealing that Grasso’s son had accompanied him on a private jet to Davos for an NYSE hosted reception—an alleged misuse of company resources. Left unmentioned? A second document in Spitzer’s possession showing that Grasso voluntarily reimbursed the NYSE for the fair-market cost of his son’s travel. (The reporter who initially ran with that story and other Spitzer leaks later sent Grasso a letter of apology.)
The lesson? When dealing with political operatives—regardless of party—it’s wise to assume that things sometimes aren’t what they seem. Gabbard told Fox News on Sunday that she plans to release more documents.
Ad hominem attacks
So far, Democratic leaders and their media myrmidons have largely sought to discredit Tulsi Gabbard’s competence and fitness to serve as Director of National Intelligence—while avoiding any substantive engagement with the documents she released.
“Tulsi Gabbard is not competent to be the Director of National Intelligence,” Virginia Senator Mark Warner said. “I believe she is trying to politicize the workforce and work product, and that makes America less safe.”
Warnings about political dissent making “America less safe” have become something of a reflexive talking point on the left. NPR President and CEO Katherine Maher claimed that Congress defunding her network was “a real risk to the public safety of the country.”
Warner, the Democratic vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, dismissed Gabbard’s disclosures outright. He pointed to a prior Senate Intelligence Committee investigation that, in his words, “reaffirmed that the Russian government directed extensive activity against U.S. election infrastructure.” He added: “This conclusion was supported on a unanimous basis by every single Democrat and Republican on the committee.”
Maybe so—but Warner notably ignored Matt Taibbi’s central allegation: that the Senate investigation was politically motivated from the start.
Gabbard’s deputy chief of staff, Alexa Henning, responded in kind, denigrating Warner as a “loser” in a tweet typical of America’s current playground-level of political discourse.
Not everyone in Congress was so dismissive. Representative Greg Steube (R-FL), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, welcomed Gabbard’s findings:
“Obama’s team pulled a Presidential Daily Briefing that disproved claims that Russia tipped the election to Trump—then told intel agencies to flip the script and push the Russiagate hoax,” Steube wrote. “That lie became the basis for Mueller’s witch hunt. The intel community may have tried to take down a duly elected president. But their efforts failed. This is only the beginning. Much more will be revealed.”
Running interference
The New York Times, true to form, ran interference. The publication dismissed Gabbard’s claims by emphasizing that multiple reviews—including a Republican-led Senate report—supported the intelligence community’s 2016 conclusion that Russia interfered to damage Hillary Clinton and help Donald Trump. The Times also noted that then–Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, now serving as Secretary of State, was among the Republicans backing those findings.
According to the Times, Gabbard’s new report conflates two separate issues: (1) Russian interference attempts and (2) the claim that the Obama administration pressured intelligence officials to alter their assessments. The publication argued that Obama simply tasked the intelligence community with summarizing its findings before he left office—allegedly to prevent the incoming Trump administration from burying them.
But not everything in the Times’ narratives holds up.
Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey are reportedly under criminal investigation for potential misconduct related to the Trump–Russia probe. A CIA review reportedly concluded that the assessment process was rushed and riddled with “procedural anomalies.” The agency found that officials deviated from intelligence standards, and that the decision to include the Steele Dossier in the ICA violated core trade craft principles and undermined the credibility of key conclusions.
Trump’s response
In a saner political era, one might expect President Trump to be seizing on this story like a dog on a bone. But so far, he’s been focused on something else entirely: a sleazy Wall Street Journal “exclusive” alleging he once sent a lewd birthday card to Jeffrey Epstein. Trump, true to form, is suing the Journal for defamation—a disgraceful waste of the court system’s time, and a case that should be summarily tossed.
That Trump finds the birthday card story more deserving of his outrage than Gabbard’s bombshell documents—amplified by Taibbi’s reporting—raises the unsettling possibility that perhaps the revelations are, in fact, much ado about nothing. Or maybe even Trump has grown numb to the Beltway’s rot.
Squandered credibility
In another era, I might have turned to the New York Times or Wall Street Journal to make sense of it all. But both publications have squandered their credibility.
A week before President Biden’s catastrophic debate performance, the Times published a story—co-authored by one of its “misinformation” reporters, no less—warning that videos showing Biden’s apparent cognitive decline were selectively edited or lacked context. This, despite the evidence being plainly visible to the American public.
At the height of the pandemic, one of the Times’ science writers declared that speculation about COVID originating from a Chinese lab was driven by racism. Multiple U.S. intelligence agencies have since concluded that a lab leak remains a credible—and possibly most likely—origin.
As for the Journal, its Epstein birthday card story was a new low in American journalism. The paper didn’t publish an image of the card, which apparently it didn’t have. Even Michael Cohen—once Trump’s confidant, now a harsh critic—questioned the story’s credibility.
Fueling conspiracy theories, one of the story’s co-authors previously worked at a media outlet owned by the wife of the founder of Fusion GPS—the firm responsible for compiling the Steele Dossier.
Gabbard has referred her findings for criminal investigation. Where this story leads is anyone’s guess—but given America’s deepening polarization and its deteriorating institutional trust, it’s not hard to imagine it ending somewhere very dark.