A briefing room bombshell

In July 2025, then-DNI Tulsi Gabbard walked into the White House briefing room and accused Barack Obama of a "treasonous conspiracy" over the 2016 Russia findings.

“treasonous conspiracy”

The documents said otherwise

Gabbard misrepresented declassified files to attack the 2017 assessment that Russia hacked Democratic emails and pushed disinformation to hurt Clinton and help Trump.

Rubio's own committee agreed

Mueller documented the interference. So did the Senate intelligence committee, chaired at the time by Republican Marco Rubio.

“ordered attacks to harm the Clinton campaign…help the Trump campaign…and undermine US democracy”

It never stopped in 2016

Russian interference has recurred in every major election since. The through line is Trump denying it happens while gutting the government's ability to stop it.

Giuliani goes to Kyiv

For 2020, Trump's personal lawyer built a team to smear Joe Biden over Hunter's Burisma board seat, pushing a prosecutor-firing story that was quickly disproved.

The KGB-trained source

Giuliani teamed with Andriy Derkach, a pro-Russia Ukrainian legislator who attended the KGB spy academy, and interviewed him for hours at a hotel outside Kyiv with an OAN crew.

“no reason to believe [Derkach] is a Russian agent”

Trump's own Treasury blew it up

Three weeks after Trump retweeted clips from Derkach's "bribe tapes," his Treasury sanctioned Derkach as a Russian agent running a covert influence campaign.

“an active Russian agent for over a decade”

Fake newsrooms for 2024

Covert networks named Storm-1516 and Doppelganger built sites mimicking the Washington Post and Fox News, seeding stories about expected fraud and bribed judges.

968 accounts and a bot farm

In July 2024 the Justice Department seized domains and took down 968 X accounts tied to a Russian AI bot farm aimed at swing-state voters.

“whole-of-government approach to influence the election”

Cash to MAGA influencers

Prosecutors charged RT employees with routing millions through a US media company to right-wing creators like Benny Johnson, who said they knew nothing about the source.

“created a large network with electorally significant influence”

Deepfaking Harris and Walz

Fabricated videos claimed Harris paralyzed a girl in a hit-and-run and that Walz touched a student. The Walz smear alone was seen by tens of millions.

The defenses were dismantled

The FBI's foreign influence task force and the DNI's Foreign Malign Influence Center were shut down, CISA staffing was slashed, and Rubio closed State's disinformation office.

“It's now a free-for-all for foreign intel services seeking influence.”

November is the next target

A former top CIA official puts it bluntly: Russia will try again, and this administration looks unwilling to stop it.

“One hundred percent: The Russians will want to screw around.”

Unilateral disarmament

A past beneficiary of Putin's operations has taken apart the guardrails that would catch the next one, putting his own position ahead of the country's.