The Duran Podcast - Russiagate and the Obama White House

Episode Date: July 27, 2025

Russiagate and the Obama White House

All right, Alexander, let's talk about Russiagate. Interesting that we say that now. So many years since our videos on Russia Gates, where we would say, let's talk about Russia Gate. And here we are now, once again, talking about Russia Gate. We're back. We're back. Back to our roots.

Yeah. Tulsi Gabbard. Yeah, exactly. Tulsi Gabbard said that she is referring Obama for criminal charges. She's referring Obama for criminal charges, and she presented some more evidence, I guess you could say, or lies from the Obama White House, which point to her assessment that the former president of the United States had a direct role in peddling the Russia gate hoax. Your thoughts on this? Well, the first thing to say is that if Talc Gabbard is doing that and on the assumption that she's got legal advice about this, which I presume she has done, then we are only being shown a fraction of the material, just to say, because if you're going to bring charges or you're thinking about bringing charges or you're contacting the Department of Justice about bringing charges, then the really serious material that you have ought for the moment to be held back so that they can assess it

and so that Obama's lawyers can look to it and respond to it. I mean, that is the way it's supposed to happen. That's due process. And I presume that's going on. So what we're, what we're seeing at the moment is probably only a fraction what Tulsi Gabbard has. I mean, that's an inference, but it's an inference that derives from what she's saying. And I suspect that it all revolves around that December 2016 meeting, which is the key meeting. And by the way, you're absolutely right. We're going back to our roots. I mean, it's a strange thing to be returning to this after all this time. It's like, you know, going back in time in some ways. But in a way we identified in our commentary back in 2018 and 2019, but 2018 especially, that this meeting in December 2016 was probably the key meeting in the whole Russia gate affair and it's increasingly looking this way.

Now, this is a meeting that happened at the intersection of a whole series of events. Firstly, it was at this meeting that apparently decisions were made to unmask people. In other words, to launch investigations against various people, but to provide clues as to who they were. If this is not controversial, it was reported extensively at the time. Susan Rice then, as I said, published a record. of this meeting in December that was very interesting and seemed to be rather evasive. And I said, we touched on that too.

The other thing that is interesting about that meeting is, which hasn't appeared yet in any of the discussions that we've come, any of the disclosures from Tulsi Gabbat. But it does seem that around this time, maybe at that particular meeting, there were discussions about Michael Flynn. You remember Michael Flynn, Donald Trump's national security advisor? He had certain telephone conversations with the Russian ambassador. All sorts of stories were circulated about him in the media at that time. He was eventually prosecuted under the foreign agents law and other charges. It was claimed that he made promises about sanctions to the ambassador, which was turned out to be untrue, by the way.

There was an article that was published about him in the Washington Post by David Ignatius, which many people were very upset about because it looked like David Ignatius was publishing classified information about an intercept. The conversation between Flynn and the ambassador, was indeed recorded. Flynn wasn't shown the recording when he met with FBI agents. There's a whole tangled story there. And Flynn was eventually, at least there was discussion about prosecuting Flynn based on a legal theory connected to a law from the 18th century, which has never really resulted in any kind of convictions. but that which was discussed possibly at this very meeting in December 2016.

That is now under discussion. If we go back in time, there's an awful lot that we just talked about then in more detail. We might find out more things about it eventually. Anyway, I don't want to jump too far ahead because we don't know. But if Tulsi Gabbard is talking about legal proceedings, then I have to assume that. that as I said, there's more than has been produced publicly up to this point. I mean, it would be a violation of due process to publicise material that you're going to use for a criminal case.

And to be said, frankly, up to this time, what we've seen doesn't yet provide the basis for a criminal case. I've pointed to some of the things that might do, that might do. Now, let's talk about what we have, and we've had some very interesting revelations now. It's very interesting. And they all relate to that intelligence community assessment that was published in January 2017, we said that the Russians had interfered in the 2016 election with the purpose of getting Donald Trump elected and preventing Hillary Clinton from being elected.

what the documents that we now have appear to show is that this this assessment was put together by a handpicked team of CIA analysts five people were selected by Brennan, the CIA director, two of them pushed back. They said there just isn't the evidence to justify these sort of conclusions. Ultimately, only three, therefore, went ahead and put this assessment together because Brennan insisted on the conclusion before the assessment was written, which is astonishing in itself. And we now know that the Steele dossier played us instrumental role in forming the conclusions of the entire assessment, which seems astonishing. The two who refused to have anything to do with it, basically said, this dossier is nonsense. And, you know, they were ignored. And the other thing is

that the evidence, the evidence, supposedly, that the Russians wanted Trump to win and Clinton to lose, was based on a fragment of a conversation from a human source, We're not told very much about this in which there is this brief comment from this human source that Putin was counting on Trump winning, which the five people who were supposed to draw up the assessment couldn't agree what those words meant. So the whole thing, to say the whole thing was thin was based on thin information is a massive overstatement. It was basically an assessment that seems to have been spun out of nothing. It was an assessment based on lies and what you've covered, Alexander, with the three lies that Tulsi effectively revealed the other day. Putin and the Russian government helped Trump win the 2016 election.

That's a lie. Everyone thought Hillary Clinton was going to win. That's just the truth of the matter. Everyone was expecting her to win. Even the New York Times had her at 97% chance that she was going to. I mean, everyone was shocked. Including the Russians. Everyone.

The Russians expected it. Everyone. Everyone. Exactly. So that was a lie. The Steele dossier was not used as a source in the 2017 Obama community, intelligence community assessment. That's a lie.

They relied on the steel dossier, even though people told them the Steele dossier, even though people told them the Steele dossier is a bunch of PS. They still relied on it. And the third lie is that the Obama administration, 2017, intelligence community assessment was independent. Absolutely. None of that. None of that's true. Absolutely. So, but her point is that it all goes back to Obama. That's the point that she's making, right? That Obama oversaw all of this. Still don't mention of Biden. No. It's most interesting. Why is that? Well, we'll see. I mean, you know, maybe, maybe he is there. And when we say Obama, I mean, Obama, of course, was the president. Biden was the vice president. So we'll have to find out. I mean, there's an awful lot going on here, I suspect, which we're not yet being informed about. Because as I said, to repeat once more, if there really is an idea of bringing charge. then by definition, a lot of the evidence is being held back.

And, you know, I've just sort of highlighted what some of that evidence might relate to. And if we're talking about Biden, can I just say that certainly at one meeting, I spoke about a legal theory that was used to justify the investigation of Flynn, that legal theory being based on an 18th century law. I clearly remember at the time the word was that it was Biden who had been a practicing lawyer who actually came up with him. So just to say, so I mean, he was involved. I mean, he was definitely involved in some respects.

And we might find out where, I mean, there are a lot of other things to say. I mean, one of the other revelations is that the Russians actually did have a huge amount of material about Hillary Clinton. more, you know, damaging to her that anything that was published at the time, you know, in 2016, you know, via WikiLeaks and the emails and all of those kind of things. There was a huge amount there that the Russians had and they never published it, which begs the question of why they would have been at all interested in publishing the emails that were published. In fact, the whole theory that they were involved in publishing those emails now has, I think, essentially disintegrated.

And there are also, it looks as it, they're starting to look as if there was the investigation, the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server as Secretary of State, which the FBI director, Comey basically closed down. It looks as if that might have some more bearing on the whole Russia Gate story than was obvious at the time, though a lot of people did think that then. So, I mean, there's an awful lot that we're still looking to find out. But, I mean, the pieces are starting to fall into place. And they're falling into place. Sorry.

Go on Hillary, you're talking about the DNC servers and all of her private. servers and the private service. Yeah. Yeah. But as I said, it looks as if, because of the same people were investigating both things, I mean, Hillary Clinton's misuse of a private server for sending out official documents or dealing with official emails, the Secretary of State, which is, as I said, was investigated. And then the Comey closed down that investigation, even as he was opening the Russia gate investigation.

So it looks as if there's more overlap between these two events, these two scandals, than had been apparent, than was made known at the time. There was, as I said, there were a lot of suspicions about this. But what I would just say in general is that all the pieces are now starting to fall into place. They're falling into place very much in the way that we were hinting at or thinking they would fall into place when we did all those earlier discussions all those years ago. And I think we did say that it was very difficult to imagine that anything could have happened without Obama. And we see what Tulsi Gapalde is now saying.

Remind me about the DNC as well because there were so many things that we were talking about. And yeah, you had the Hillary, you had the private service. You had a Russia gate, Obama, a Biden, that meeting about FARA going after Flynn. the Mueller investigation, all that. And then you had the other thread of the DNC service. Yes. Yeah, I mean, this was the hack, the supposed to. The hack, yeah, the hack.

Yeah, of the DNC service by the Russians, by, you know, who then extracted all these emails that proved that the Clinton campaign and the DNC National Committee had basically rigged the primary process against Bernie Sanders. So that was then all channeled to RikiLeaks. And they blamed Russia for all of that. And they blamed Russia for it. But it's now starting to look as if all that whole theory is absolutely untrue. We haven't got to the whole details of this, but it's increasingly looking, is it?

This is extremely unlikely and probably not what happened. And as I said, there's many questions about this as well. There is something else I wanted to say. And there's a big further question mark. And it relates specifically to Brennan. Because Brennan and the CIA for two years afterwards circulated this story that they got this information from a source within the credit. which had confirmed that Putin had actually given instructions to help Trump and to undermine

Hillary during the election. And there was a Russian official who supposedly defected, well, who did defect, and who is apparently living in the United States, and who worked for Putin's foreign policy aid, Uschikov and he's now sometimes been spoken about as the source of this information. Now, I was looking through all of the material that Tulsi Gabbat has provided and I was looking to see whether this information from this source that Brennan was talking about was used in creating this intelligence community assessment of January 2017. And I can't really find any evidence of it. So that really puts a question mark over that whole story. I mean, was it that,

in fact, a source within the Kremlin as we were led to belief? Oh, is this just another piece of misdirection and a piece of imagination? Or was this the source that provided the fragment about Putin counting? The fragment, yes. Exactly. Because if so, then I mean, you know, this source doesn't really amount to very much. So, you know, there are questions. There are lots and lots of questions here. We're only at the very beginning of trying to get to the bottom of this. But I'm starting to have serious doubts about whether that story about the CIA having

an informer within the Kremlin, whether that really carries any weight at all. because if it is the fragment that this source provided, then frankly, it doesn't demand to anything. As I said, all five of the people who were tasked with providing, drawing up the community assessment, couldn't agree as to what those words, you know, Putin was counting on Trump winning, what those words even meant. So there it is. So there's lots of unanswered questions here. And we haven't even started on Papadopoulos, Professor Nitzitzud, and all of those things,

and what Downer was doing and what that American informer who was in, I could have forgotten his name. Halper. Halper. Yeah. Halper. And what he was up. I forgot where he was. Exactly.

As it was Cambridge. Exactly. I mean, what all of these people were up to. There's absolutely nothing so far about any of that. But no doubt, eventually, we will get to the bottom of that too. I mean, I'd like to think so. What was the British intelligence role in all of this? Exactly.

Yeah, I mean, a lot of things went down in Italy, went down in London. A lot of Russia gate is connected to Europe. Yes, absolutely. Well, and Ukraine, because another piece of negative information, is that the CIA, it turns out, was relying an awful lot for its intelligence on Russia, on various European intelligence agencies. And Ukraine was by far, Ukraine was by far the most important. So you're getting your assessments about politics in Russia, the state of the Russian economy, the decision-making processes in Moscow from Ukraine in intelligence. What could possibly go wrong?

Of which we now know from various articles from the New York Times and the Washington Post that Ukraine intel was essentially CIA Intel. The CIA was running all of the Ukraine intel. Oh, absolutely. I mean, the two melted. effective, which as I said, I mean, if ever there was an intelligence disaster in the making, there it is. I mean, you're relying on, you know, people like Kirilo Budanov to provide you with information about what is going on in Moscow, in the Kremlin. I mean, it's really, I mean,

it's astonishing, but that is apparently what the CIA was doing. Yeah, just a final question. I can't figure this out. I haven't put my finger on it yet. But I'm, I'm just starting to come to the conclusion that Russiagate and Epstein are obviously connected. Obviously, the revelations about Russiagate have some sort of connection to the lack of revelations about Epstein. And the fact that you're seeing a type of media war or in a deep state elite war going on between, say, the Russiagate thread and the Epstein thread is, I think it's increasing. I think it's obvious because you have, while all of this is being released by Tulsi Gabbard, and obviously Russia Gate also serves as a distraction away from Epstein. But at the same time, you have the Wall Street Journal posting articles about how their sources claim that the DOJ told Trump, that he's named in the Epstein files. Obviously, if you're named in the Epstein files, it doesn't mean that you've done anything, but he's in there. And so you have all of this stuff simultaneously being released.

The one serves the distraction to the other. but at the same time, I just get the sense that there is this layer that sits on top of the U.S. government, this deep state elite layer that seems to be battling it out or coming up with different narratives to try and knock the other side down or something going on there. I mean, I still haven't been able to get it all clear in my head. But I don't know, I just wanted your thoughts on this. You're completely right. Because the timing of that Wall Street Journal article directly coincident. I mean, it's right as Tulsi Gabbard is coming out with all this information. You have the Wall Street Journal article as well coming out about Trump in Epstein.

I can tell you, for an absolute fact. I mean, I'm glad you posed this question because as somebody who is a grizzled veteran of bureaucratic wars, I can tell you for an absolute fact that we are seeing all of the out. with signs that such a bureaucratic war is underway. And it is playing out within the permanent government, the deep state, if you will, different factions are maneuvering. They're each trying to gain advantage. And I suspect that Epstein obviously is a huge issue. And I think that Russiagate is a huge issue as well. And everybody's very, very nervous about what's happening. And they're trying to push for advantage. It's very difficult.

for us as outsiders to work out what's going on. Because, of course, we are seeing only the surface of things, but I suspect within the Department of Justice, within the FBI, within the CIA, there are raging battles underway at this time and massive recriminations and extraordinary worries and fears and all kinds of things taking place. Yeah.

and a lot of power at stake of control and power. Absolutely. When these bureaucratic battles get really bad, which they are at the moment, I'll tell you something else that happens is that everything else freezes up because when bureaucracies start fighting each other in this way, that becomes the all-consuming issue for the people who are involved in them. So that's something that we might also start to be seeing signs of in the next few months. We could start to see CIA, FBI is starting to focus more on its internal conflicts

than on doing what some people would say, where's its job. That might not be a bad thing, by the way, just then. And let's not forget that it was Hillary Clinton that went after Tulsi. I remember it was Hillary Clinton that also said that Tulsi was. was a Putin stooch. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely.

A lot of interesting dynamics at play. Okay, we will end the video there, the durand.com. We are on Rumble and X and Telegram and go to the Duran shop, pickups of merch, like what we are wearing in this video update. There is a link in the description box down below. Take care.