After twitting a fake video of President Obama being arrested while sitting with Trump in the Oval Office, President Trump tried to make it real.

Of course, this conveniently comes as the Epstein Files remain secret, even though the Martin Luther King, Jr. files are suddenly, inexplicably, revealed. But pretextual or not, does Tulsi Gabbard have a point?

FRIDAY’S MEMO RELEASED BY TULSI GABBARD, the director of national intelligence, claiming that the intelligence community “manipulated and withheld” key evidence in the “Russiagate” investigation in 2016—and her even more explosive allegation that high-level Obama administration officials “weaponized” intelligence to “lay the groundwork for what was essentially a years-long coup” against Donald Trump—was met with predictable joy among the usual suspects…

Gabbard’s statement, which explicitly threatened the alleged wrongdoers (including former FBI director James Comey, CIA director John Brennan, and DNI James Clapper) with prosecution for “treasonous conspiracy,” not only vindicates the Trumpian narrative of the “Russia, Russia, Russia hoax” but represents a disturbing escalation in Trump’s vendetta against officials who he feels crossed him during his first administration.

If true, this would be outrageous. But the “if true” here is doing far too much work.

If true, that would indeed be outrageous. But this supposed scandal rests on a crude bait-and-switch. A quick look at the media reports Gabbard cites shows that they weren’t talking about altering the election outcome through “cyberattacks on election infrastructure”ؙ—that is, actual tampering with the vote count. Rather, the claims of election interference via cyber warfare concerned, as the Washington Post put it, “individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman.”

The findings of the earlier investigations were twofold, that Russia sought to influence opinion in favor of Trump, and that Russia’s attempts to change vote counts failed. As Cathy Young is wont to do, she dissects Gabbard’s claims and rips them to shreds, explaining in brutal detail how Gabbard conflated claims, omitted facts, all to create the flagrantly false impression that the “crime of the century” had been committed by…Obama, of all people.

But Gabbard isn’t some rando who influences Trump’s Oval Office decisions like Laura Loomer. She’s the Director of National Intelligence, a position of some importance and upon which the president, and hence the nation, rely for accurate information.

IF ANYONE STILL HAD DOUBTS THAT GABBARD IS A BAD ACTOR, installed in her present job with the purpose of corrupting U.S. intelligence and turning it into a tool of Trump’s personal agendas and vendettas, the Russiagate report should put those doubts to rest. Was the timing of her memo meant as a distraction from the scandal around Trump’s connections with Jeffrey Epstein? Hard to say; it was probably being prepared before the Epstein story catapulted back into the news. What’s clear is that it boosts not only the MAGA narrative of Trump as victim of the “deep state”— a convenient excuse for Trump’s moves to purge and MAGAfy intelligence agencies—but also the narrative of Trump as victim of a “coup,” inverting the reality of the attempt to steal the 2020 election.

It wasn’t too long ago that Tulsi Gabbard, representing Hawaii’s second district in Congress, ran for the Democratic candidate for president, losing to Joe Biden. Yet here she is, now a Republican, friend to the old Syrian dictatorial regime, pal o’ Putin and now Trump’s DNI. She was confirmed by the Senate for the post despite all this. Is Tulsi Gabbard competent and qualified to be DNI? Can she be trusted? Is she a sell-out to Trump? Is she just batshit crazy? If Tulsi can be DNI given her comprises and limitations, is there any purpose to having a Director of National Intelligence at all?

*Tuesday Talk rules apply.