Props to Chuck Todd for Exposing Chuck Schumer's Agonizing, Hypocritical Game

April 03, 2017

WRITER

Could there be a glimmer of hope in the mainstream media? Sunday on Meet the Press, host Chuck Todd interviewed Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and did something we rarely see. He actually held the senator's feet to the fire, pointing out the hypocrisy on the Gorsuch vote.

"It's ridiculous what they're doing to the Supreme Court nominee. But I also want you to hear Chuck Todd actually punching the clock and showing the rest of journalists what it's like to be a journalist," Glenn said Monday on radio.

Todd grilled Schumer on the rules change Democrats made in 2013 to confirm judges --- and the senator's displeasure with it now.

Let's give credit where credit's due. Chuck Todd actually behaved like an unbiased reporter searching for the truth.

Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:

GLENN: Yesterday -- last night, I tweeted this out because I think it's important audio for you to hear with Chuck Todd and Chuck Schumer, to show you how unhinged the Democrats are. It's just -- it's ridiculous what they're doing to the Supreme Court nominee. But I also want you to hear Chuck Todd actually punching the clock and showing the rest of journalists what it's like to be a journalist.

CHUCK: You expressed regret earlier this year for the rules change that was made on judges in 2013. Why did you go along with it if you regret doing it?

SCHUMER: Well, let's look at the history. Our Republican colleagues had been holding back on just about all of so many lower court judges, including very important DC circuit. I went to Lamar Alexander, one of my dear friends in the Senate, and I said, "Look, if you keep holding back on scores and scores of judges, my side is going to want to change the rules. Go to Mitch and tell him. At least let us have some votes on a few of these, many of whom had gotten bipartisan support."

The answer was no. And we changed the rules. But the one thing that stands out here, Chuck, is we did not change it for Supreme Court for one very important reason: And that is, on -- on the most important of decisions, 60 votes is called for. That's why you go to mainstream, that's how you get a mainstream justice.

PAT: Can you believe the hair he's splitting here? That they changed the rules. Sure, but we didn't do it on the Supreme Court. That's just because there was no Supreme Court justice coming up for a vote at that time.

STU: That they needed the help for --

PAT: Right. Right.

STU: They didn't need it.

PAT: They didn't need to do that.

STU: You know why? Because Republicans, too many of them, by the way, did not oppose, Kagan or Sotomayor.

PAT: Yes. They just caved.

Sotomayor is not mainstream. Kagan was not mainstream. But he wants a mainstream justice.

SCHUMER: Just about every -- Mitch calls it a filibuster. We call it the 60-vote standard. Most Americans believe in the 60-vote standard.

CHUCK: But, Senator -- that's fine. But there is no rule that says that it has to be 60 votes. There's no part of advice and consensus that says it has to be 60 votes. And, in fact, there's currently two members of the Supreme Court right now that did not get 60 votes: Sam Alito and Clarence Thomas.

SCHUMER: Well, actually Clarence Thomas is the only one. Because when the filibuster came up with Alito, there were 72 votes to go forward. So there was just one. Just about every nominee gets 60 votes because in the past, presidents actually consulted the other side before picking someone.

PAT: What a bald-faced lie. That is such garbage. Like Barack Obama went to conservatives and said, "Hey, who would you like me to appoint?"

GLENN: Sotomayor.

PAT: Sonia Sotomayor. You like her? Yeah, me too. So -- come on.

STU: By the way, according to the New York Times, Sotomayor is to the left of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

PAT: Right. She's not --

STU: She's mainstream. She is the most --

PAT: So bad.

STU: He actually has the balls in this clip to actually cite the exact thing I'm talking about. Because he says, well, the New York Times said he would be the second most conservative justice, Justice Clarence Thomas. He actually says that in the story. That same article says the most liberal justice on the Supreme Court is Sonia Sotomayor to the left of Ginsburg.

PAT: Jeez, man. And that's hard to believe. It's hard to believe anybody could be that -- what is -- the only thing left of Sotomayor is Joe Stalin. And he's gone. He's gone.

GLENN: We lost him.

VOICE: In this case, Donald Trump consulted the Heritage Foundation, the Federalist society, hard right groups with extreme special interest-oriented views. And it didn't leave much chance for compromise.

PAT: My gosh.

VOICE: You know, Heidi Heitkamp, one of the Democratic senators in your conference, she came out in favor of Neil Gorsuch and in favor of cloture. She said she's not happy about it. She didn't like the way Merrick Garland was treated. But she ended her statement by essentially saying, two wrongs don't make a right. Why not give Neil Gorsuch an up or down vote, Senator Schumer?

VOICE: Let me make a proposal to maybe break the problem that we have.

PAT: I'm sure this will be reasonable.

GLENN: Okay.

VOICE: It looks like Gorsuch will not reach the 60-vote margin. So instead of changing the rules, which is up to Mitch McConnell and the Republican majority, why doesn't President Trump, Democrats and Republicans in the Senate, sit down and try to come up with a mainstream nominee?

PAT: And finally come up with a nominee that I like? Why don't they do that? How about I just tell Trump who to nominate?

GLENN: Yeah, we did this with Sotomayor.

PAT: Sotomayor. Yeah, oh, they did that.

GLENN: They did.

VOICE: Look, when a nominee doesn't get 60 votes, you shouldn't change the rules. You should change the nominee, and let's just take one minute here --

PAT: The hypocrisy is unbelievable.

VOICE: -- because this is important. Let's just look at the history. Okay?

PAT: Okay.

VOICE: Our nominee was Merrick Garland. Mitch McConnell broke 230 years of precedent and didn't call him up for a vote. It wasn't in the middle of an election campaign. It was March.

PAT: Which is the middle of the election.

VOICE: Second, now it looks like we have the votes to prevent Gorsuch from getting on.

Now, that -- that doesn't mean you have to change the rules.

PAT: Yeah, it does.

VOICE: Each side didn't get their nominee. Let's sit down and come together.

GLENN: You got your nominee.

VOICE: Our Republican friends are acting like, you know, they're a cat on the top of a tree.

PAT: They expected -- what they're saying about the Merrick Garland thing is that they expected a hard-core conservative to be replaced with a liberal. And, of course, the Republicans weren't going to bring that up for a vote. Of course not. Come on.

GLENN: And it was in the middle of an election.

PAT: Yes, it was.

GLENN: I remember tweeting, this may change the course of the election.

PAT: You can't allow that to swing the entire court in the direction of the left-wing.

GLENN: No.

PAT: I mean, that would be -- that would have been a horrible, horrible move.

STU: And this is -- you want to talk about a good argument for Gorsuch, what you're seeing here from Chuck Schumer is, he knows he's not getting a liberal. What he wants is someone he thinks he can win later. The Kennedys of the world. I always think of Briar, but the other guy that was in New Hampshire.

PAT: Souter.

STU: He wants a Souter, right? He's hoping he can get someone who looks kind of conservative at the beginning, but you're not really sure. Then you can win him over on big things. Roberts, you can win him over on certain issues. And he doesn't think he has that in Gorsuch, which is a positive, by the way.

PAT: Yeah.

STU: A very big positive.

PAT: This is why Gorsuch should be hammered through no matter what. Change the rule and just get it done.

JEFFY: Yes.

PAT: Get, what? Fifty-four votes now. And that's -- so, what? It's not 60. Like Chuck Todd said, no rule says you have to have 60. There's no law.

STU: And we all know this standard is going away. Because if it doesn't go away here, if they don't do it with Gorsuch, the next person who comes up is going to do it. Whether it's Democratic or a Republican president, the next justice that comes up is going to slam these guys through with 50 votes no matter what.

GLENN: Boy, I hope they do. I hope they do.

STU: Because this standard is dead. It's dead. So I think, so far, the initial idea with Democrats was, let's not do it to Gorsuch when they have an obviously good nominee. Let's wait for the next one. We can really vilify them. Because that's going to be the balance of the court. We can vilify them. Really go after it. And we'll have credibility, because we let Gorsuch go through. Now, I think with the health care failure, they're feeling a little momentum. They're thinking they might as well just go for this now.

GLENN: Wrong move -- wrong move strategically, I think. Wrong move strategically.

PAT: And he keeps saying that Gorsuch is not mainstream. Nobody could have been more reasonable --

STU: Yeah.

PAT: During a hearing, than Neil Gorsuch was. He was absolutely mainstream. He sounded completely unbiased on many issues. He actually said Roe v. Wade was settled law, along with the gay marriage thing. I mean, almost everything the Democrats would want, he said, yeah, it's settled.

STU: He said if Trump asked him how he would rule on Roe vs. Wade during the interview, he would have walked out of the room. Now, of course, Trump promised that he would ask his nominees that questions. So apparently he didn't do that.

PAT: He should. The Democrats certainly do.

STU: Yeah, I honestly have no problem -- everyone makes that out to be, oh, how dare you. Well, isn't that, I don't know, a fundamental question you should know about your justice?

PAT: Yes, yes.

STU: We're like -- we're supposed to play this weird telepathic game with these guys.

GLENN: What they're saying is trying to appeal to, you know, their sense of reason and independent-minded action for the specific case. But I can't think of the case where it overturns Roe vs. Wade that doesn't involve the choice, is this a blob of tissue, or is it a child?

STU: Well, privacy. I mean, they try to find indicators, right? Gorsuch has never had a ruling on abortion. He has had -- he did write a book about euthanasia. He is shown to be very favorable towards issues that would indicate --

PAT: Does he not like senior citizens in Asia, what's the deal?

STU: Yeah, no, it's true. It's a different thing. But, yes, he does not like citizens? Citizens in Asia. That's just separate.

PAT: That's weird.

STU: But every indication is that he will be very good on this issue.

PAT: Yeah, but you don't know for sure. And you would ask. Because certainly Barack Obama asked Sonia Sotomayor and Kagan if they were in favor of abortion or not. You know that happened.

STU: I mean, maybe it was so obvious, he didn't to have ask.

JEFFY: Didn't have to.

STU: Not much of a debate on that one.

PAT: Never would a Democrat nominate a Supreme Court justice who wasn't pro-choice.

GLENN: Never.

PAT: You know that wouldn't happen. Would not happen.

So this little game Schumer is trying to play is asinine.

GLENN: Is there anymore left?

PAT: Yeah, there's some more.

VOICE: And they have to jump off with all the damage that entails. Come back off the tree, sit down, and work with us, and we will produce a mainstream nominee. It will be -- one more point. One more point.

VOICE: Hang on here.

VOICE: It will be a Republican nominee. But, remember, Democrats voted for Roberts and Alito. And both of them got the 60 votes.

VOICE: All right. But there are already two Democrats for Neil Gorsuch. So there already is a bipartisan majority -- and, look, two is two. It's more than zero, for what it's worth.

But why should senator McConnell work with you guys on this when you changed the rules first, when you decided to do this?

And, again, a change that you yourself said this week and two months ago that you regret and it was a mistake.

VOICE: We never -- but I don't regret not changing it for the Supreme Court.

Let me read you a quote of Mr. McConnell. You like to put up quotes. He said, I think we can stipulate -- and my good friends on the other side of the aisle stipulated from time to time over the years, when they were in the minority, that in the Senate, it takes 60 votes on controversial matters. That has been the tradition of the Senate for a long time. This is nothing new.

PAT: Tough.

VOICE: Then why did you change the rules in the first place? I go back to this because now we're going down this slippery slope.

PAT: Good.

VOICE: And everybody has hypocrisy on their side to point the finger.

VOICE: Yes. Yes.

VOICE: But you guys are hand in hand sliding down the slope. Tell me this, in ten years, do you think the filibuster will still be alive for anything?

VOICE: Yeah. That's one of the few things that my dear friend Mitch said on the show that I agree with.

PAT: So disingenuous. Your dear friend Mitch. Okay.

VOICE: I don't think there's any thirst to change the legislative rules. Sixty votes for that.

PAT: Such a lie.

VOICE: Most Democrats and most Republicans have served in both the minority and majority and know what it means. But why not -- you know, you can do a lot of finger pointing. Each side has some right here. Let's stop this now. And the way to stop it is the way I mentioned. You know, other --

PAT: And the way to stop it is to do exactly what he wants and nominate somebody he's fine with --

GLENN: My way. As long as we do it my way, we're fine. Give me a justice that we want and we'll be fine.

PAT: Yeah.

GLENN: Forget about you.

PAT: Exactly.

GLENN: I mean, they didn't care a lick about what the Republican said.

PAT: Not at all.

STU: Of course not. And, you know what, honestly, they shouldn't. You know, they shouldn't.

If you have control of all three branches -- or, not all three branches, but all three -- you know, you're going through House, Senate, presidency, you have all three of those, you shouldn't be consulting with the other side. You should go pick somebody you think is good for your side, just like they got --

PAT: And that's the situation Republicans are in right now.

STU: Yeah, and it was just like the one the Democrats were in last time. Not the whole time.

PAT: Make it happen.

STU: Not the whole time.

GLENN: Well, I believe that's where we first heard elections have consequences.

STU: Yeah.

PAT: Yes.

STU: And what they do, you should be able to push through your own Supreme Court justice if you're the president of the United States and you have control of the House and the Senate. Yes, you should be able to do that.

Exposed: The radical Left's bloody rampage against America

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

For years, the media warned of right-wing terror. But the bullets, bombs, and body bags are piling up on the left — with support from Democrat leaders and voters.

For decades, the media and federal agencies have warned Americans that the greatest threat to our homeland is the political right — gun-owning veterans, conservative Christians, anyone who ever voted for President Donald Trump. President Joe Biden once declared that white supremacy is “the single most dangerous terrorist threat” in the nation.

Since Trump’s re-election, the rhetoric has only escalated. Outlets like the Washington Post and the Guardian warned that his second term would trigger a wave of far-right violence.

As Democrats bleed working-class voters and lose control of their base, they’re not moderating. They’re radicalizing.

They were wrong.

The real domestic threat isn’t coming from MAGA grandmas or rifle-toting red-staters. It’s coming from the radical left — the anarchists, the Marxists, the pro-Palestinian militants, and the anti-American agitators who have declared war on law enforcement, elected officials, and civil society.

Willful blindness

On July 4, a group of black-clad terrorists ambushed an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Alvarado, Texas. They hurled fireworks at the building, spray-painted graffiti, and then opened fire on responding law enforcement, shooting a local officer in the neck. Journalist Andy Ngo has linked the attackers to an Antifa cell in the Dallas area.

Authorities have so far charged 14 people in the plot and recovered AR-style rifles, body armor, Kevlar vests, helmets, tactical gloves, and radios. According to the Department of Justice, this was a “planned ambush with intent to kill.”

And it wasn’t an isolated incident. It’s part of a growing pattern of continuous violent left-wing incidents since December last year.

Monthly attacks

Most notably, in December 2024, 26-year-old Luigi Mangione allegedly gunned down UnitedHealth Group CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan. Mangione reportedly left a manifesto raging against the American health care system and was glorified by some on social media as a kind of modern Robin Hood.

One Emerson College poll found that 41% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 said the murder was “acceptable” or “somewhat acceptable.”

The next month, a man carrying Molotov cocktails was arrested near the U.S. Capitol. He allegedly planned to assassinate Trump-appointed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and House Speaker Mike Johnson.

In February, the “Tesla Takedown” attacks on Tesla vehicles and dealerships started picking up traction.

In March, a self-described “queer scientist” was arrested after allegedly firebombing the Republican Party headquarters in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Graffiti on the burned building read “ICE = KKK.”

In April, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s (D-Pa.) official residence was firebombed on Passover night. The suspect allegedly set the governor’s mansion on fire because of what Shapiro, who is Jewish, “wants to do to the Palestinian people.”

In May, two young Israeli embassy staffers were shot and killed outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C. Witnesses said the shooter shouted “Free Palestine” as he was being arrested. The suspect told police he acted “for Gaza” and was reportedly linked to the Party for Socialism and Liberation.

In June, an Egyptian national who had entered the U.S. illegally allegedly threw a firebomb at a peaceful pro-Israel rally in Boulder, Colorado. Eight people were hospitalized, and an 82-year-old Holocaust survivor later died from her injuries.

That same month, a pro-Palestinian rioter in New York was arrested for allegedly setting fire to 11 police vehicles. In Los Angeles, anti-ICE rioters smashed cars, set fires, and hurled rocks at law enforcement. House Democrats refused to condemn the violence.

Barbara Davidson / Contributor | Getty Images

In Portland, Oregon, rioters tried to burn down another ICE facility and assaulted police officers before being dispersed with tear gas. Graffiti left behind read: “Kill your masters.”

On July 7, a Michigan man opened fire on a Customs and Border Protection facility in McAllen, Texas, wounding two police officers and an agent. Border agents returned fire, killing the suspect.

Days later in California, ICE officers conducting a raid on an illegal cannabis farm in Ventura County were attacked by left-wing activists. One protester appeared to fire at federal agents.

This is not a series of isolated incidents. It’s a timeline of escalation. Political assassinations, firebombings, arson, ambushes — all carried out in the name of radical leftist ideology.

Democrats are radicalizing

This isn’t just the work of fringe agitators. It’s being enabled — and in many cases encouraged — by elected Democrats.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz routinely calls ICE “Trump’s modern-day Gestapo.” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass attempted to block an ICE operation in her city. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu compared ICE agents to a neo-Nazi group. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson referred to them as “secret police terrorizing our communities.”

Apparently, other Democratic lawmakers, according to Axios, are privately troubled by their own base. One unnamed House Democrat admitted that supporters were urging members to escalate further: “Some of them have suggested what we really need to do is be willing to get shot.” Others were demanding blood in the streets to get the media’s attention.

A study from Rutgers University and the National Contagion Research Institute found that 55% of Americans who identify as “left of center” believe that murdering Donald Trump would be at least “somewhat justified.”

As Democrats bleed working-class voters and lose control of their base, they’re not moderating. They’re radicalizing. They don’t want the chaos to stop. They want to harness it, normalize it, and weaponize it.

The truth is, this isn’t just about ICE. It’s not even about Trump. It’s about whether a republic can survive when one major party decides that our institutions no longer apply.

Truth still matters. Law and order still matter. And if the left refuses to defend them, then we must be the ones who do.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

America's comeback: Trump is crushing crime in the Capitol

Andrew Harnik / Staff | Getty Images

Trump’s DC crackdown is about more than controlling crime — it’s about restoring America’s strength and credibility on the world stage.

Donald Trump on Monday invoked Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, placing the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department under direct federal control and deploying the National Guard to restore law and order. This move is long overdue.

D.C.’s crime problem has been spiraling for years as local authorities and Democratic leadership have abandoned the nation’s capital to the consequences of their own failed policies. The city’s murder rate is about three times higher than that of Islamabad, Pakistan, and 18 times higher than that of communist-led Havana, Cuba.

When DC is in chaos, it sends a message to the world that America is weak.

Theft, assaults, and carjackings have transformed many of its streets into war zones. D.C. saw a 32% increase in homicides from 2022 to 2023, marking the highest number in two decades and surpassing both New York and Los Angeles. Even if crime rates dropped to 2019 levels, that wouldn’t be good enough.

Local leaders have downplayed the crisis, manipulating crime stats to preserve their image. Felony assault, for example, is no longer considered a “violent crime” in their crime stats. Same with carjacking. But the reality on the streets is different. People in D.C. are living in constant fear.

Trump isn’t waiting for the crime rate to improve on its own. He’s taking action.

Broken windows theory in action

Trump’s takeover of D.C. puts the “broken windows theory” into action — the idea that ignoring minor crimes invites bigger ones. When authorities look the other way on turnstile-jumping or graffiti, they signal that lawbreaking carries no real consequence.

Rudy Giuliani used this approach in the 1990s to clean up New York, cracking down on small offenses before they escalated. Trump is doing the same in the capital, drawing a hard line and declaring enough is enough. Letting crime fester in Washington tells the world that the seat of American power tolerates lawlessness.

What Trump is doing for D.C. isn’t just about law enforcement — it’s about national identity. When D.C. is in chaos, it sends a message to the world that America is weak. The capital city represents the soul of the country. If we can’t even keep our own capital safe, how can we expect anyone to take us seriously?

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

Reversing the decline

Anyone who has visited D.C. regularly over the past several years has witnessed its rapid decline. Homeless people bathe in the fountains outside Union Station. People are tripping out in Dupont Circle. The left’s negligence is a disgrace, enabling drug use and homelessness to explode on our capital’s streets while depriving these individuals of desperately needed care and help.

Restoring law and order to D.C. is not about politics or scoring points. It’s about doing what’s right for the people. It’s about protecting communities, taking the vulnerable off the streets, and sending the message to both law-abiding and law-breaking citizens alike that the rule of law matters.

D.C. should be a lesson to the rest of America. If we want to take our cities back, we need leadership willing to take bold action. Trump is showing how to do it.

Now, it’s time for other cities to step up and follow his lead. We can restore law and order. We can make our cities something to be proud of again.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

POLL: Can Trump make D.C. great again?

Drew Angerer / Staff | Getty Images

For years, Washington, D.C., has been a symbol of everything wrong with big government—riddled with crime, manipulated stats, and soft-on-crime policies that let gangs terrorize innocent citizens while the elite turn a blind eye. Now, President Trump is stepping up, deploying federal agents after a savage attack on a hero like Edward Coristine, vowing no more "Mr. Nice Guy" as he promises to jail criminals, clear out the homeless encampments, and restore order just like he sealed the border. This isn't just a crackdown; it's a reclamation of our capital from the chaos liberals have unleashed.

Glenn has already covered this on his radio show, exposing how legacy media and Democrats twist crime numbers. They claim that there was a 35% drop in crime while ignoring FBI data showing only a 10% decline, and murders are still sky-high compared to pre-pandemic days. Trump's policies draw parallels to the 1990s, when Congress took control and turned things around, proving that strong leadership can counteract progressive failures. With Democratic mayors crying "power grab" in failing cities like Chicago and Baltimore, it's clear: Trump's bold move is a lifeline for liberty, not a threat. Our capital should be a shining example of America, where leaders can work in peace and foreign representatives can see what this nation stands for without fearing for their lives.

Our nation's heart is at risk from the gaslighting establishment that benefits from disorder, absurdly framing Trump's actions as a "military takeover." Is this the leadership America needs, or will we let the swamp dictate the narrative?

Glenn wants to know what YOU think: Can we trust the media's spin? Should Trump expand this fight? Make your voice heard in the poll below:

Do you support President Trump's deployment of federal agents to crack down on D.C. crime?

Do you believe liberal media and Democrats are manipulating crime stats to undermine Trump's efforts?

Is Trump's plan to jail criminals and relocate the homeless a necessary step to restore order in our capital?

Do you see Democratic policies as the root cause of rising violence in cities like D.C., Chicago, and Baltimore?

Should Trump extend this federal intervention to other failing blue cities to protect American liberty?

Durham annex exposes Hillary’s hand in Russiagate deception

Anna Moneymaker / Staff | Getty Images

Newly declassified documents show that Hillary Clinton approved the Russia hoax strategy — and that the Obama White House was briefed from the beginning.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) last week declassified a 29-page document known as the Durham annex. Its publication has received remarkably little attention from major media outlets, despite containing one of the most significant intelligence disclosures since the origins of the Russiagate investigation.

The Durham annex is not conjecture, analysis, or political spin. It is a collection of sensitive intelligence reports, internal memos, and declassified emails compiled by the intelligence community and withheld from public view for years under the pretext of “source protection.”

The Durham annex reveals that the FBI ignored evidence in 2015 and 2016 suggesting that foreign governments were attempting to collude not with Trump, but with Clinton.

The declassified document offers a clearer view of what many Americans have long suspected: that the narrative surrounding Trump-Russia collusion was not only politically motivated but deliberately constructed by the Clinton campaign, facilitated by sympathetic actors within U.S. intelligence agencies, and ultimately endorsed by senior members of the Obama administration.

This trove of documents does not merely reinforce existing criticisms of the FBI’s conduct during the 2016 election. It provides evidence that the Clinton campaign approved a strategy to discredit Donald Trump by promoting a false association with Vladimir Putin. And it does so using intelligence collected from foreign surveillance of American political actors — surveillance that the CIA deemed credible enough to brief President Barack Obama directly.

The cover-up unraveled

Central to the Durham annex is a source codenamed “T1” — a foreign intelligence asset who intercepted Russian cyber-espionage activity targeting American entities, including George Soros’ Open Society Foundation, the Clinton campaign, and U.S. think tanks. The reports T1 relayed to U.S. intelligence included detailed assessments of internal American political strategy. In effect, T1 was watching Russian spies watch us — and reporting back.

T1’s identity remains classified, but strong circumstantial evidence points to a Dutch intelligence source. The Netherlands reportedly gained access to Russian cyber operations as early as 2014. Regardless of who provided it, U.S. agencies treated the intelligence from T1 as credible.

Then-CIA Director John Brennan quickly briefed President Obama, Vice President Biden, FBI Director James Comey, and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Those briefings included memos indicating Hillary Clinton had personally approved a plan to tie Donald Trump to Russian election interference.

One memo, dated 2016 and reportedly obtained through Russian surveillance of George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, outlined a Clinton campaign strategy: “Smear Donald Trump by magnifying the scandal” over Russia’s preference for Trump. That memo laid the groundwork for the Trump-Russia collusion hoax now known as Russiagate.

Intelligence running Clinton’s interference

The CIA labeled the intelligence “sensitive” and credible. The FBI rejected it. Agents claimed it relied on hearsay, appeared exaggerated, and might have suffered from translation errors.

That kind of skepticism might seem reasonable — if the FBI had applied the same scrutiny to the Steele dossier. Instead, they accepted that now-debunked document without verification and used it to justify surveillance warrants.

The inconsistency runs deeper than analysis. The Durham annex reveals that the FBI ignored evidence from 2015 and 2016 showing that foreign governments weren’t courting Trump — they were cozying up to Clinton.

One memo, written before Trump even announced his candidacy, described a foreign intelligence operative preparing to meet with a Clinton associate to discuss a “plan.” The operative was acting on direct orders from a foreign head of state

Gilbert Carrasquillo / Contributor | Getty Images

The precise content of the plan is redacted, but the FBI’s field office viewed it as serious enough to request a FISA warrant. That request, however, was left to “languish in limbo” by senior FBI officials, who subsequently warned Clinton in a defensive briefing.

Frayed trust, no accountability

The documents suggest a coordinated operation — one in which political, bureaucratic, and media institutions aligned to discredit a political opponent using information they had strong reasons to believe was false. The CIA deemed the intelligence worth a presidential briefing. The FBI discarded it. The media ignored it. And Clinton operatives implemented it.

This is not merely a scandal of partisan excess. Nearly 10 years after the first Hillary Clinton email leaks, and eight years after Trump’s unexpected victory, we are only now beginning to see the scope of institutional complicity in the Russiagate deception. The political cost may never be fully calculated, but the institutional damage — to the FBI, to the intelligence community, and to the trust of the American people — is already done.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Glenn's Show Prep

Props to Chuck Todd for Exposing Chuck Schumer's Agonizing, Hypocritical Game

Exposed: The radical Left's bloody rampage against America

For years, the media warned of right-wing terror. But the bullets, bombs, and body bags are piling up on the left — with support from Democrat leaders and voters.

Willful blindness

Monthly attacks

Democrats are radicalizing

America's comeback: Trump is crushing crime in the Capitol

Trump’s DC crackdown is about more than controlling crime — it’s about restoring America’s strength and credibility on the world stage.

When DC is in chaos, it sends a message to the world that America is weak.

Broken windows theory in action

Reversing the decline

POLL: Can Trump make D.C. great again?

Do you support President Trump's deployment of federal agents to crack down on D.C. crime?

Do you believe liberal media and Democrats are manipulating crime stats to undermine Trump's efforts?

Is Trump's plan to jail criminals and relocate the homeless a necessary step to restore order in our capital?

Do you see Democratic policies as the root cause of rising violence in cities like D.C., Chicago, and Baltimore?

Should Trump extend this federal intervention to other failing blue cities to protect American liberty?

Durham annex exposes Hillary’s hand in Russiagate deception

Newly declassified documents show that Hillary Clinton approved the Russia hoax strategy — and that the Obama White House was briefed from the beginning.

The Durham annex reveals that the FBI ignored evidence in 2015 and 2016 suggesting that foreign governments were attempting to collude not with Trump, but with Clinton.

The cover-up unraveled

Intelligence running Clinton’s interference

Frayed trust, no accountability