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Pentagon dismisses report that US strike on Iran only destroyed 1 nuclear site
Pentagon dismisses report that US strike on Iran only destroyed 1 nuclear site

Yahoo

time8 hours ago

  • Politics
  • Yahoo

Pentagon dismisses report that US strike on Iran only destroyed 1 nuclear site

The Trump administration is pressing back on a new intelligence assessment, first reported by NBC News, that contradicts President Trump's repeated assertions that U.S. airstrikes 'obliterated' Iran's nuclear facilities last month. Citing five current and former U.S. officials familiar with the latest assessment, NBC News reported Thursday that Iran's Fordow nuclear enrichment site was mostly destroyed in the U.S. military operation, while two others — Isfahan and Natanz — may have only been set back by months and could resume operations. 'The credibility of the Fake News Media is similar to that of the current state of the Iranian nuclear facilities: destroyed, in the dirt, and will take years to recover,' Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement to The Hill's sister network NewsNation on Thursday. 'President Trump was clear and the American people understand: Iran's nuclear facilities in Fordow, Isfahan, and Natanz were completely and totally obliterated.' 'There is no doubt about that,' he added. The White House also pushed back on the latest NBC News report. 'As the President has said and experts have verified, Operation Midnight Hammer totally obliterated Iran's nuclear capabilities,' deputy press secretary Anna Kelly told NewsNation. 'America and the world are safer thanks to his decisive action.' Reports first surfaced last month, shortly after the U.S. launched its surprise attacks on Tehran's nuclear sites, that U.S. intelligence officials at the Defense Department found that the attacks did not destroy Iran's nuclear infrastructure. The president and his allies forcefully pushed back on that assessment. NBC News reported that American and Israeli leaders have since discussed whether additional strikes on two less-damaged facilities could be necessary if Iran does not restart negotiations on a nuclear deal. The U.S. launched its Operation Midnight Hammer on the three key nuclear facilities on June 21 as Tehran and Israel traded airstrikes. The Israel-Iran conflict halted the U.S.'s efforts to reach an agreement with Tehran to prohibit the country from developing a nuclear weapon. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Solve the daily Crossword

Tulsi Gabbard Helps Boost Trump's Russia Crusade, Calling for Prosecution of Obama Officials
Tulsi Gabbard Helps Boost Trump's Russia Crusade, Calling for Prosecution of Obama Officials

Yahoo

time10 hours ago

  • Politics
  • Yahoo

Tulsi Gabbard Helps Boost Trump's Russia Crusade, Calling for Prosecution of Obama Officials

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic lawmaker who has since turned MAGA, is helping her boss President Donald Trump try to rewrite the history of 2016 to match his preferred talking points. On Friday, Gabbard called for the Obama administration to be 'prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,' alleging a 'conspiracy' by which officials 'manufactured' intelligence to claim that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to boost Trump's presidential campaign. Multiple investigations over the past eight years have found that Russia tried to undermine Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and bolster Trump, by leaking documents from the Democratic National Committee. The 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment, published during Trump's first term, found that Russia meddled in the election specifically to boost Trump's campaign. These findings have helped foster Trump's grudge against the intel community and the 'deep state.' Trump has long called 'Russiagate' a hoax. Gabbard, her press release claims, declassified documents that 'revealed overwhelming evidence' allegedly showing Obama and national security officials 'manufactured and politicized intelligence to lay the groundwork for what was essentially a years-long coup against President Trump.' It's an ironic claim given that Trump supporters actually did attempt a coup on Jan. 6, and he pardoned them. The Obama administration's 'goal was to usurp President Trump and subvert the will of the American people,' Gabbard posted on X. 'No matter how powerful, every person involved in this conspiracy must be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The integrity of our democratic republic depends on it.' She added that the documents will be turned over to the Department of Justice for criminal referral. These allegations arrive while Trump is in the spotlight over his ties to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement that an investigation already found that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. 'The Senate Intel Committee unanimously concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 election,' he said in a post on X. 'If there had been some Obama conspiracy, we would have found it. This latest lie is another sad, dangerous example of Tulsi Gabbard trying to rewrite history and erode trust in the [intelligence community].' CNN reported earlier this month that the FBI is investigating former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey, both of whom are named in the documents. Lawmakers questioned Gabbard, who was deployed to Iraq and Kuwait as part of her service in the Army National Guard and has defended Russia's 2020 invasion of Ukraine, over her possible sympathies with Russia during her confirmation hearings. More from Rolling Stone Democrats Are Preparing a Deliberately Incomplete 2024 Election Autopsy These Right-Wingers Won't Shut Up About Epstein, No Matter What Trump Says Trump Sues Wall Street Journal, Rupert Murdoch Over Report on Epstein Birthday Letter Best of Rolling Stone The Useful Idiots New Guide to the Most Stoned Moments of the 2020 Presidential Campaign Anatomy of a Fake News Scandal The Radical Crusade of Mike Pence

Tulsi Gabbard releases ‘overwhelming evidence' of Obama coup plot against Trump
Tulsi Gabbard releases ‘overwhelming evidence' of Obama coup plot against Trump

Russia Today

time13 hours ago

  • Politics
  • Russia Today

Tulsi Gabbard releases ‘overwhelming evidence' of Obama coup plot against Trump

Former President Barack Obama's administration deliberately manipulated intelligence to frame Russia for interfering in the 2016 presidential election, according to newly declassified documents released on Friday by America's Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. Gabbard unveiled more than 100 pages of emails, memos, and internal communications, which she described as 'overwhelming evidence' of a coordinated effort by senior Obama-era officials to politicize intelligence and launch the multi-year Trump–Russia collusion investigation. She dubbed it 'a treasonous conspiracy to subvert the will of the American people.' The scandal severely damaged relations between Moscow and Washington, leading to sanctions, asset seizures, and a breakdown in normal diplomacy. 🧵 Americans will finally learn the truth about how in 2016, intelligence was politicized and weaponized by the most powerful people in the Obama Administration to lay the groundwork for what was essentially a years-long coup against President @realDonaldTrump, subverting the… 'This intelligence was weaponized,' Gabbard said. 'It was used as a justification for endless smears, for sanctions from Congress, and for covert investigations.' She added: 'When key internal assessments found that Russia 'did not impact recent U.S. election results,' those findings were suppressed.' 'For months before the 2016 election, the Intelligence Community maintained that Russia lacked both the intent and capability to hack U.S. elections,' Gabbard noted. 'But once President Trump won, everything changed.' One document — a draft President's Daily Brief dated December 8, 2016 — stated Russia 'did not impact recent U.S. election results' through cyberattacks. The report, prepared by the CIA, NSA, FBI, DHS, and other agencies, found no evidence of voting interference. Yet Fox News reported on Friday that the document was pulled — 'based on new guidance,' according to internal emails. Hours later, a high-level Situation Room meeting took place, attended by officials including DNI James Clapper, CIA Director John Brennan, National Security Adviser Susan Rice, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and Attorney General Loretta Lynch. According to declassified notes, attendees agreed to produce a new intelligence assessment at President Obama's request. That report, released on January 6, 2017, claimed Russia had intervened in the election to help Donald Trump — directly contradicting earlier assessments. Gabbard claims the revised assessment leaned on the discredited Steele Dossier — compiled by a former British spy — while sidelining dissenting views within the intelligence apparatus. 'This was not intelligence gathering,' Gabbard stated. 'It was narrative building.' Their goal was to usurp President Trump and subvert the will of the American matter how powerful, every person involved in this conspiracy must be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The integrity of our democratic republic depends on Confirmed as DNI earlier this year — after a contentious process — Gabbard says she has forwarded the documents to the Department of Justice. She has urged investigations into former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey, who are reportedly facing criminal inquiries. 'No matter how powerful, every person involved must be brought to justice,' she stressed. 'Our nation's integrity depends on accountability.' 'The integrity of our democratic republic depends on full accountability,' Gabbard concluded. 'Nothing less will restore the public's trust — and ensure nothing like this ever happens again.'

GREGG JARRETT: How Obama and cronies created Trump-Russia hoax, and what happens next
GREGG JARRETT: How Obama and cronies created Trump-Russia hoax, and what happens next

Fox News

time17 hours ago

  • Politics
  • Fox News

GREGG JARRETT: How Obama and cronies created Trump-Russia hoax, and what happens next

Never before in American history has a departing president connived to sabotage and destroy the man who would replace him. Newly revealed documents show that in 2016 then-President Barack Obama and his national security team "manufactured and politicized" phony intelligence to help frame Donald Trump as a Russian asset when they knew it was untrue. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard who unearthed and released the declassified documents on Friday described it as an "egregious abuse of power" that amounts to a "treasonous conspiracy." Treason is a strong term with an exceedingly high legal standard. So, too, is seditious conspiracy. The use of violence or force is often a central element for both. Closer to the mark are other serious crimes. They include conspiracy to defraud the government and deprivation of rights under the color of law. That is, using knowingly false or fabricated evidence to support a case against Trump and to obstruct or impair a lawful government function such as an election. Not surprisingly, the genesis of the plot began with Hillary Clinton. On July 26, 2016, she allegedly approved an illicit scheme to sully her political opponent for colluding with Russia to rig the upcoming presidential election. The bogus smear was intended to distract from her own burgeoning email scandal. Hillary's campaign commissioned and funded a dossier that was little more than a collection of lies supplied by Clinton confederates. The CIA discovered what Hillary had done and immediately alerted the Obama White House. In two successive meetings on July 28 and Aug. 3, 2016, then-CIA Director John Brennan briefed the president and other top officials, including Vice President Joe Biden, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and FBI Director James Comey. Brennan's handwritten notes from the Situation Room show how he recounted Clinton's plan "to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service." From that point on, it was a closely guarded secret. It was all a hoax, and the above-named participants well knew it. Yet, none of them had the integrity to step forward to tell either Congress or the American people the truth. Instead, they watched in silence as Comey and his FBI acolytes launched a dilating investigation of Trump dubbed "Crossfire Hurricane." They shamelessly weaponized their authority and contorted the law to persecute Trump. As planned, the fake collusion narrative was leaked to the Trump-hating media. Almost from the outset, the FBI had debunked the dossier and later fired its author, Christopher Steele, for lying. The ex-British spy had been a paid source for the FBI. By concealing this vital information, Comey sought and obtained surveillance warrants from the FISA court on a Trump campaign associate, Carter Page. No evidence of wrongdoing was ever discovered because none existed. When the Russia hoax failed to prevent Trump from winning the presidency, the same malevolent adversaries doubled down on the Clinton-inspired scheme. The new documents released by Gabbard show that a Dec. 8, 2016 draft of the President's Daily Briefing (PDB) assessed that "Russian and criminal actors did not impact recent US election results by conducting malicious cyber activities against election infrastructure." But that conclusion, compiled by top intelligence agencies, did not conform to the Trump collusion narrative. Comey and others apparently scuttled the PDB and concocted an alternative plan. The next day, Dec. 9, Obama convened select cabinet officials, along with Clapper, Brennan, and FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. A new Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) was ordered that would undermine the PDB and perpetuate the Trump-Russia collusion fiction. The replacement narrative would claim that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Trump win the presidency. It didn't seem to matter that it was not true. Brennan and Comey ensured that the discredited dossier was incorporated in the ICA, which was rushed to completion before the new president took office. Why the urgency? So that Comey could use it to entrap Trump into a false confession before his inauguration. On Jan. 6, 2017, the FBI director traveled to Trump Tower armed with the ICA that deceptively alleged Russian interference in the campaign and also confronted the president-elect with salacious accusations in the dossier that the bureau knew were untrue. Comey's unscrupulous gambit failed when Trump vigorously denied the allegations as utterly preposterous, which they were. Meanwhile, there is still more damning evidence that must be declassified —some of it sealed for nearly a decade and buried in the bowels of the FBI and other intel agencies. None of that deterred Comey and his minions at the FBI. They escalated their investigation of Trump and propagated the collusion lie. Clapper leaked the dossier to CNN, as reporters and pundits spent the next year happily convicting the new president in the court of public opinion without a shred of plausible evidence. When Comey was eventually fired, he purloined FBI documents on his way out the door and promptly leaked them to a friend in the media to trigger the appointment of a special counsel who just happened to be his former colleague and mentor, Robert Mueller. In the end, of course, Mueller and his team of partisans —try as they may— could find no evidence of a criminal collusion conspiracy. Those of us who fairly and honestly covered the faux scandal knew it all along. In my 2018 book titled The Russia Hoax, I wrote on page one that "there was not a whiff of credible evidence to legally justify the probe" initiated by Comey. I described it as "a clever feint for a covert criminal investigation in search of a crime, reversing and bastardizing the legal process." I laid out the facts which still hold true today. In my follow-up book the next year, Witch Hunt, I offered more incriminating details of exactly how malign actors aspired and conspired to evict Trump from office: "Evidence against him was invented or embellished. Laws were perverted or ignored. Trump was framed for a 'collusion' conspiracy that had never existed. They knew it was untrue." The newly constituted FBI has already opened a criminal investigation of Brennan and Comey. That is a good start. But they were not the only ones who should be held to account. The list is a long one, and it goes right to the top —Obama and Clinton. It started with the collusion hoax, but it didn't end there. Trump appears to have been the victim of an ongoing criminal conspiracy that stretched for nearly a decade. It eventually evolved into the specious prosecutions brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith that were engineered by the Biden administration and simultaneous coverups of suspected illegality by the Biden family, many of whom received preemptive pardons. On that basis, the FBI is reportedly examining the possibility of bringing a "grand conspiracy" case that would encompass many of the above-noted acts that were intended to unduly influence three presidential elections, 2016, 2020, and 2024. The advantage of adopting this legal avenue is two-fold. First, it would extend any expired statute of limitations to the date of more recent overt acts such as the raid on Mar-a-Lago and events thereafter. Second, it would allow any prosecutions to be brought in a venue other than Washington, D.C., where the endemic bias of jurors make it nearly impossible to gain convictions. Meanwhile, there is still more damning evidence that must be declassified —some of it sealed for nearly a decade and buried in the bowels of the FBI and other intel agencies. But even without it, there is little doubt that top officials at the FBI, CIA, Department of Justice and the White House abused their authority for political purposes. Armed with immense power and often lurking in the shadows, they were capable of uncommon corruption. Their allegiance was not to the Constitution and the rule of law but to themselves. Personal animus and a voracious appetite for control motivated their zeal. Trump was their obstacle. He jeopardized their hold on power, so they schemed to destroy him by any means and at any cost. The only cure for lies is the truth. And the only remedy for lawlessness is justice. The pursuit of what is right depends on both principles.

GREGG JARRETT: How Obama and cronies created Trump-Russia hoax, and what happens next
GREGG JARRETT: How Obama and cronies created Trump-Russia hoax, and what happens next

Fox News

time17 hours ago

  • Politics
  • Fox News

GREGG JARRETT: How Obama and cronies created Trump-Russia hoax, and what happens next

Print Close By Gregg Jarrett Published July 19, 2025 Never before in American history has a departing president connived to sabotage and destroy the man who would replace him. Newly revealed documents show that in 2016 then-President Barack Obama and his national security team "manufactured and politicized" phony intelligence to help frame Donald Trump as a Russian asset when they knew it was untrue. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard who unearthed and released the declassified documents on Friday described it as an "egregious abuse of power" that amounts to a "treasonous conspiracy." OBAMA OFFICIALS USED DOSSIER TO PROBE, BRIEF TRUMP DESPITE KNOWING IT WAS UNVERIFIED 'INTERNET RUMOR' Treason is a strong term with an exceedingly high legal standard. So, too, is seditious conspiracy. The use of violence or force is often a central element for both. Closer to the mark are other serious crimes. They include conspiracy to defraud the government and deprivation of rights under the color of law. That is, using knowingly false or fabricated evidence to support a case against Trump and to obstruct or impair a lawful government function such as an election. Not surprisingly, the genesis of the plot began with Hillary Clinton. On July 26, 2016, she allegedly approved an illicit scheme to sully her political opponent for colluding with Russia to rig the upcoming presidential election. The bogus smear was intended to distract from her own burgeoning email scandal. Hillary's campaign commissioned and funded a dossier that was little more than a collection of lies supplied by Clinton confederates. The CIA discovered what Hillary had done and immediately alerted the Obama White House. In two successive meetings on July 28 and Aug. 3, 2016, then-CIA Director John Brennan briefed the president and other top officials, including Vice President Joe Biden, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and FBI Director James Comey. Brennan's handwritten notes from the Situation Room show how he recounted Clinton's plan "to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service." From that point on, it was a closely guarded secret. It was all a hoax, and the above-named participants well knew it. Yet, none of them had the integrity to step forward to tell either Congress or the American people the truth. Instead, they watched in silence as Comey and his FBI acolytes launched a dilating investigation of Trump dubbed "Crossfire Hurricane." They shamelessly weaponized their authority and contorted the law to persecute Trump. As planned, the fake collusion narrative was leaked to the Trump-hating media. Almost from the outset, the FBI had debunked the dossier and later fired its author, Christopher Steele, for lying. The ex-British spy had been a paid source for the FBI. By concealing this vital information, Comey sought and obtained surveillance warrants from the FISA court on a Trump campaign associate, Carter Page. No evidence of wrongdoing was ever discovered because none existed. When the Russia hoax failed to prevent Trump from winning the presidency, the same malevolent adversaries doubled down on the Clinton-inspired scheme. The new documents released by Gabbard show that a Dec. 8, 2016 draft of the President's Daily Briefing (PDB) assessed that "Russian and criminal actors did not impact recent US election results by conducting malicious cyber activities against election infrastructure." But that conclusion, compiled by top intelligence agencies, did not conform to the Trump collusion narrative. Comey and others apparently scuttled the PDB and concocted an alternative plan. The next day, Dec. 9, Obama convened select cabinet officials, along with Clapper, Brennan, and FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. A new Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) was ordered that would undermine the PDB and perpetuate the Trump-Russia collusion fiction. The replacement narrative would claim that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Trump win the presidency. It didn't seem to matter that it was not true. Brennan and Comey ensured that the discredited dossier was incorporated in the ICA, which was rushed to completion before the new president took office. Why the urgency? So that Comey could use it to entrap Trump into a false confession before his inauguration. On Jan. 6, 2017, the FBI director traveled to Trump Tower armed with the ICA that deceptively alleged Russian interference in the campaign and also confronted the president-elect with salacious accusations in the dossier that the bureau knew were untrue. Comey's unscrupulous gambit failed when Trump vigorously denied the allegations as utterly preposterous, which they were. Meanwhile, there is still more damning evidence that must be declassified —some of it sealed for nearly a decade and buried in the bowels of the FBI and other intel agencies. None of that deterred Comey and his minions at the FBI. They escalated their investigation of Trump and propagated the collusion lie. Clapper leaked the dossier to CNN, as reporters and pundits spent the next year happily convicting the new president in the court of public opinion without a shred of plausible evidence. When Comey was eventually fired, he purloined FBI documents on his way out the door and promptly leaked them to a friend in the media to trigger the appointment of a special counsel who just happened to be his former colleague and mentor, Robert Mueller. In the end, of course, Mueller and his team of partisans —try as they may— could find no evidence of a criminal collusion conspiracy. Those of us who fairly and honestly covered the faux scandal knew it all along. In my 2018 book titled The Russia Hoax, I wrote on page one that "there was not a whiff of credible evidence to legally justify the probe" initiated by Comey. I described it as "a clever feint for a covert criminal investigation in search of a crime, reversing and bastardizing the legal process." I laid out the facts which still hold true today. In my follow-up book the next year, Witch Hunt, I offered more incriminating details of exactly how malign actors aspired and conspired to evict Trump from office: "Evidence against him was invented or embellished. Laws were perverted or ignored. Trump was framed for a 'collusion' conspiracy that had never existed. They knew it was untrue." The newly constituted FBI has already opened a criminal investigation of Brennan and Comey. That is a good start. But they were not the only ones who should be held to account. The list is a long one, and it goes right to the top —Obama and Clinton. It started with the collusion hoax, but it didn't end there. Trump appears to have been the victim of an ongoing criminal conspiracy that stretched for nearly a decade. It eventually evolved into the specious prosecutions brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith that were engineered by the Biden administration and simultaneous coverups of suspected illegality by the Biden family, many of whom received preemptive pardons. On that basis, the FBI is reportedly examining the possibility of bringing a "grand conspiracy" case that would encompass many of the above-noted acts that were intended to unduly influence three presidential elections, 2016, 2020, and 2024. CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION The advantage of adopting this legal avenue is two-fold. First, it would extend any expired statute of limitations to the date of more recent overt acts such as the raid on Mar-a-Lago and events thereafter. Second, it would allow any prosecutions to be brought in a venue other than Washington, D.C., where the endemic bias of jurors make it nearly impossible to gain convictions. Meanwhile, there is still more damning evidence that must be declassified —some of it sealed for nearly a decade and buried in the bowels of the FBI and other intel agencies. But even without it, there is little doubt that top officials at the FBI, CIA, Department of Justice and the White House abused their authority for political purposes. Armed with immense power and often lurking in the shadows, they were capable of uncommon corruption. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Their allegiance was not to the Constitution and the rule of law but to themselves. Personal animus and a voracious appetite for control motivated their zeal. Trump was their obstacle. He jeopardized their hold on power, so they schemed to destroy him by any means and at any cost. The only cure for lies is the truth. And the only remedy for lawlessness is justice. The pursuit of what is right depends on both principles. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM GREGG JARRETT Print Close URL

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