United States | News & Politics

Despite her claims that it is a damning bombshell, the material in the newly released report in fact does not challenge the conclusion of the U.S. intelligence agencies, the Mueller report, and the Senate Intelligence Committee that Russia preferred a Trump presidency to a Clinton presidency and worked to get Trump elected in part by attacking Clinton and spreading lies about her health.

What the report did do was deliver red meat to the MAGA base by spreading the same sorts of rumors about Clinton the Russians spread in 2016.

Gabbard compounded that effort at the White House press conference by reading material in the report as if it were fact, saying that Russia had “high-level [Democratic National Committee] e-mails that detailed evidence of Hillary's ‘psycho emotional problems, uncontrolled fits of anger, aggression, and cheerfulness.’ And that then-secretary Clinton was allegedly on a daily regimen of heavy tranquilizers,” along with a number of other charges that Clinton had broken the law. Gabbard did not mention that these allegations were in fact identified in the report as material prepared by Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Services.

Just to be clear: The director of national intelligence for the United States of America is making allegations against a former U.S. presidential candidate based on material from Russia’s intelligence services.

This seems to be another unforced error, reminding Americans of another story the administration would prefer they forget, since opponents of Gabbard’s nomination for her post noted that she has a long history of repeating Russian propaganda. While Trump seems determined to reach back to the rhetoric that got him elected in 2016, it’s hard to see that as a powerful distraction from the Epstein story, since Americans have now had eight years to contemplate the many times Trump has deferred to Russian president Vladimir Putin and weakened Ukraine’s ability to fight back against Russia’s incursions. And claims about the health of a losing presidential candidate from nine years ago seem pretty weak sauce, especially since today she seems far more stable than Trump.