Congressional Republicans, experts blast legacy media for peddling Russiagate, misleading Americans

Congressional Republicans and experts criticized the mainstream media for peddling in unison the "Russiagate" scandal — that turned out to be a campaign hoax — for years, resulting in the American people being misled for a long period of time. 

"We've got alternate media, but still the bulk of our media [is] basically the communication arm of the Democrat Party, which is radical leftists," Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said during a special report titled "Weaponization and the Grand Conspiracy" aired on Real America's Voice and hosted by Just the News. "So the American people aren't hearing this."

Tulsi Gabbard lights the fuse

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard earlier this month issued a press release stating that her office had “revealed overwhelming evidence that demonstrates how, after President Donald Trump won the 2016 election against Hillary Clinton, President Barack Obama and his national security cabinet members manufactured and politicized intelligence to lay the groundwork for what was essentially a years-long coup against President Trump.”

The record — bolstered by newly-declassified documents — shows that Obama was a central figure at key points throughout the Russiagate saga. Documents show Obama was personally briefed on the “Clinton Plan intelligence” in which Clinton sought to falsely link Trump to Russia, likely to distract from her own classified email server scandal. 

Despite knowing the underlying basis was weak or untrustworthy at best, the FBI launched "Crossfire Hurricane" later in July 2016 anyway.

Johnson sees indictments down the road

"We need to indict in a venue where there actually would be a fair trial," Johnson said. "And the reason I want a trial is I can't think of a better venue where you can take day after day after day, hour after hour after hour, each one of those days when we just lay out the evidence painstakingly, exhaustively, accurately for the American public [and] for historical record of it," Johnson said. "I think that'd be the best way we can write reports."

Johnson said that he and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa., wrote a report on how the mainstream media covered up Russiagate by calling Trump's campaign "Russian disinformation."

He added that everyday Americans should be outraged with the mainstream media for lying to the public. 

"Our big impediment to exposing this and getting more of the American public to be outraged, as they should be outraged, is the legacy media," Johnson said. 

"They're not turning back their Pulitzer Prizes that they won on a complete false story that they were either duped, but I think more likely they were complicit in."

Purposely ignoring evidence of Putin's preference for Clinton

The report released by Gabbard also alleges the December 2016 Intelligence Community Assessment "glossed over" evidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin may have instead favored (or at least fully expected) a Hillary Clinton victory nine years ago.

"They actually thought, in reality, that Hillary Clinton was going to win, and they were looking for ways that they could actually find leverage on Hillary Clinton," Congresswoman Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., said on the special. 

"They found a lot of information they disclosed on her. So then what do they do? They get hysterical. All of a sudden, Donald Trump wins. Nobody expected that."

Tenney also said Russiagate was a calculated effort to obstruct the president of the U.S. "There are so many sections of federal criminal law that I think that need to be looked at," she said. 

Foundation for Economic Freedom Online Executive Director Mike Benz said federal agencies also played a big role in Russiagate.

"Censorship came to the United States through the national security agencies, by way of Russiagate," Benz said on the special. "And this was done through the FBI, through DHS, through the CIA [and] through DOD. There was no predicate before that." 

The Patriot Act was signed into law by President George W. Bush in October 2001, a month after the 9/11 terror attacks. It was later strengthened by President Obama in 2015. Critics of the reconfigured law included prominent Democrats Zoe Lofgren, of California, and Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon.