How the CIA’s dirty tricks shape US elections — and you



In my new book, “Twilight of the Shadow Government: How Transparency Will Kill the Deep State,” I describe in detail how the Central Intelligence Agency manipulates the U.S. government and its military-industrial complex contract corporations. The CIA attempts to influence not only foreign government elections but U.S. elections as well — a deeply disturbing aspect of what I call the shadow government, aka the deep state.

This pattern dates to the administration of John F. Kennedy. During Kennedy’s presidency, the CIA conducted covert operations without his knowledge. Furious, JFK fired rogue CIA Director Allen Dulles, who held a deep grudge against him. It surprised no one in Congress when, after Kennedy’s assassination, Dulles was put in charge of the Warren Commission, which investigated the president's murder. Dulles handpicked and coached all CIA witnesses who testified before the committee.

The CIA is manipulating a presidential election, right in front of the American people — again.

The CIA also played a direct role in the rise of former President Bill Clinton. As governor of Arkansas, Clinton entered into a secret agreement with then-Vice President George H.W. Bush — another notorious CIA figure — to use the Mena, Arkansas, airport to run guns and drugs to and from the Nicaraguan Contras.

I was a CIA officer during that time. The CIA was under investigation for committing felonies behind Congress’ back (and, of course, behind the backs of the American people). I have no doubt that the CIA gave then-Gov. Clinton a CIA clearance, bringing him into direct contact with “the Company.”

Despite supposedly being political enemies, Bush and Clinton maintained a close relationship until Bush’s death in 2018. From my perspective, Clinton’s direct connection to the CIA helped him rise from relative obscurity to the presidency, making him yet another useful president for the CIA.

Decades of deception

George H.W. Bush had a decades-long affiliation with the CIA, which he tried to downplay by claiming he only worked with the agency during his brief tenure as director in the mid-1970s. In reality, Bush was a CIA officer as far back as 1953, when he partnered with CIA officer Thomas Devine to form Zapata Petroleum, working under commercial cover. Their oil wells were located just 40 miles from Cuba.

One of Bush’s tasks as director was to manage the fallout from the CIA’s Operation Mockingbird. During a news conference, Bush stated that the CIA would no longer recruit American journalists to be on the agency’s payroll. What many missed, however, was his follow-up comment: From now on, reporters and the news media could work with the CIA on a voluntary basis. The CIA has a unique way of turning “voluntary” into a requirement, establishing a quid pro quo with major media companies. This arrangement prevented outlets from publishing exposés on CIA activities while providing them with intelligence-derived information to manipulate public opinion.

When Bush became vice president in 1981, it essentially placed the CIA in the second-highest seat of the U.S. government. I am convinced that Bush was the agency’s mastermind behind the criminal Iran-Contra operation, once again manipulating a president to engage in illegal covert activities.

Under President Barack Obama, the CIA implemented a drone assassination program that targeted at least eight wedding parties, killing innocent civilians. The CIA convinced Obama to maintain a kill list of foreigners it considered dangerous, often based on unproven suspicions. In effect, Obama allowed the CIA to act as judge, jury, and executioner.

Obama arrested and jailed more intelligence whistleblowers than any previous president, using the outdated Espionage Act. The most notable of these was former CIA case officer John Kiriakou, a top performer in the CIA Counterterrorism Center, who was imprisoned on frivolous charges.

During the Obama administration, notorious CIA Director John Brennan made several covert trips to Ukraine to underwrite the 2014 coup, which resulted in the Russia-Ukraine war and the ensuing proxy war between the United States and Russia, bringing America to the brink of World War III.

Russian collusion and other hoaxes

While Donald Trump was president, the CIA launched a full-scale operation to remove him from office for daring to question the agency. Brennan initiated the Russia collusion hoax by leaking the “Steele dossier,” a complete fabrication based on false information from Russian intelligence officials. Brennan misled the press, claiming the dossier was CIA intelligence. I have provided an in-depth analysis of this CIA operation on YouTube (@kevinshipp1). This was the CIA’s attempt to stage a domestic coup and take down a sitting president. Although the plot failed, no CIA or FBI official faced accountability for their crimes.

After Joe Biden’s victory, evidence surfaced of Biden’s involvement in Ukraine following the 2014 CIA-orchestrated coup. This led to the discovery of Hunter Biden’s laptop, which contained salacious videos, along with evidence of sex, drugs, and guns. To protect Biden, 51 former intelligence officials, including 42 senior CIA officers, quickly signed a public statement claiming the laptop story was “Russian disinformation.” That was a lie. We must remember that the CIA’s core functions include lying, deception, and propaganda, especially when protecting its own existence.

We now know the CIA convinced Facebook and Twitter executives to promote Biden for president and censor posts supporting Trump. The cover for the operation? Posts and articles supporting Donald Trump were “Russian disinformation.” Russia is always the CIA’s boogeyman.

This brings us to the upcoming 2024 presidential election. I am an independent, and I am not endorsing either party. My goal is to remain objective and unbiased. The CIA is up to its dirty tricks again, attempting to sway public opinion in the direction of the agency's chosen candidate, Kamala Harris. All 42 of the aforementioned senior CIA officers (the most notorious being Mike Morrell, who attempted to sway the 2016 presidential election in Hillary Clinton’s favor) have issued a statement supporting Kamala Harris for president and attacking Trump. That’s along with 741 “national security leaders” who have endorsed Harris.

The CIA is manipulating a presidential election, right in front of the American people — again.

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Democratic Sen. Mark Warner is reviving the Russian collusion narrative just in time for another election



Democratic Sen. Mark Warner (Va.), was one of the leading exponents of the Russian collusion hoax. In 2019, for instance, he claimed, "There's no one that could factually say there's not plenty of evidence of collaboration or communications between Trump Organization and Russians."

Special counsels Robert Mueller and John Durham ultimately proved him wrong, revealing there was no substantive evidence of Russian collusion in the 2016 election.

Subsequent analysis revealed that to the extent there was foreign interference, it was likely inconsequential — not including the foreign-sourced Steele dossier collected for the Clinton campaign, which Democrats used to great effect. For instance, the Washington Post, whose journalists were awarded for peddling the debunked "Russia hoax" narrative, admitted that so-called Russian trolls "had no measurable impact in changing minds or influencing voter behavior" ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

Before Durham could take some of the wind out of Warner's sails, the senator claimed ahead of the 2020 election, "the Russians who attacked us in 2016 are still attacking us."

The Virginia senator is apparently at it again, pre-emptively characterizing Nigel Farage's gains in Britain's July 4 election as the Kremlin's preferred outcome. According to Politico, Farage's Reform U.K. party could pick up as many as 17 seats in the British Parliament, including five from the Conservatives.

The Telegraph reported Tuesday that while Warner admitted that U.S. intelligence agencies "have not seen much [Russian] activity" around the British election, he has suggested "the chances are, as we saw in the past, this activity ramps up dramatically the closer it gets to the election."

According to the Telegraph, Warner "singled out Nigel Farage as he described Vladimir Putin's potential efforts to exploit different attitudes among British politicians towards defending Kyiv's frontlines."

Conservative party establishmentarians like Rishi Sunak, Boris Johnson, and Liz Truss are reportedly in agreement that Ukraine can succeed militarily so long as it keeps receiving weapons and funding.

Farage, alternatively, recently said, "I'm not saying we shouldn't support Ukraine at all. Not for one minute. But at the end of the day most wars end in negotiation and I fear, if we don't find some way of at least sitting down and talking, that we're going to finish up with a war that goes on for year after year after year."

Warner apparently regards a difference of opinion amongst British politicians on the country's foreign policy — in this case, regarding a negotiated end to the war in Ukraine — as position capture by Russia.

"Clearly, Russia does not like the fact that the UK has been as stalwart as they have been in terms of defense on Ukraine," said Warner. "It clearly meets Putin's plans if he can lessen the British or the Americans' resolve for supporting Ukraine, he can save some money on his tanks, guns, ships and planes if he can diminish support."

In a recent BBC interview, which has been grossly mischaracterized by the English press, Farage noted that Putin has "gone from prime minister, to president, he's a clever political operator. He kills journalists. I don't like him as a human being in any way at all."

"You can recognize the fact that some people are good at what they do even if they have evil intent," continued Farage.

When asked what he'd say to Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy if in a position of influence, Farage said, "I'd say to Zelensky, 'Look, the West have been supporting you, they will go on supporting you, but the percentage of your young manhood that you're losing is so bad, isn't it time we at least tried to have a negotiation?' He couldn’t say no."

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Report: CIA Started Russia Collusion Hoax By Asking Foreign Governments To Spy On Trump Campaign

The CIA 'illegally mobilized foreign intelligence agencies to target Trump advisors long before the summer of 2016.'

Biden DHS touts Russiagate hoaxers as members of new intelligence 'experts group'



Peddling false narratives that benefit President Joe Biden appears to be a smart career move in the nation's capital.

Congressional investigators indicated in May that ahead of the 2020 presidential election, a senior Biden campaign adviser got the ball rolling on the bogus "intel" letter that sought to discredit the New York Post's damning Hunter Biden laptop story. That adviser, Antony Blinken, ended up becoming secretary of state.

On Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced that several ex-Obama officials, including signatories of the notorious "intel" letter and exponents of the debunked Russian collusion narrative, would be joining the DHS' new Homeland Intelligence Experts Group.

In a statement, the DHS indicated the group, which will meet four times a year, "is comprised of private sector experts who will provide their unique perspectives on the federal government's intelligence enterprise to DHS's [Intelligence and Analysis] and the Office of the Counterterrorism Coordinator."

"The security of the American people depends on our capacity to collect, generate, and disseminate actionable intelligence to our federal, state, local, territorial, tribal, campus, and private sector partners," said Mayorakas, who has failed to prevent over 5.8 million illegal aliens from stealing into the U.S. since Biden took office.

"I express my deep gratitude to these distinguished individuals for dedicating their exceptional expertise, experience, and vision to our critical mission," added Mayorkas.

Among the group's 17 members, three signed the Oct. 19, 2020, letter claiming that "the arrival on the US political scene of emails purportedly belonging to Vice President Biden's son Hunter ... has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation."

Those signatories are John Brennan, former director of the CIA and chief counterterrorism adviser to former President Barack Obama; James Clapper, former director of National Intelligence under Obama; and Paul Kolbe, former senior operations officer at the CIA.

Then-candidate Joe Biden used the letter to great effect, referencing it in the final presidential debate with former President Donald Trump on Oct. 22, 2020, saying, "Look, there are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what he’s accusing me of is a Russian plan. They have said that this has all the characteristics — four, five former heads of the CIA, both parties, say what he’s saying is a bunch of garbage. Nobody believes it except him and his good friend Rudy Giuliani."

FEC records reportedly indicated that Clapper and Kolbe also donated to Biden's 2020 campaign.

Brennan and Clapper worked particularly hard for years to paint former President Donald Trump as a Russian asset and his administration as compromised by Russia — corrosive claims that the Mueller and Durham reports demonstrated to have been false.

For instance, Clapper, who became a fixture on CNN as a national security analyst, told the liberal network in December 2017 that Russian President Vladimir Putin "knows how to handle an asset, and that's what he's doing with" Trump.

Brennan was a particularly vociferous proponent of the Russia hoax, even though he admitted behind closed doors to know better.

He penned an Aug. 16, 2018, New York Times opinion piece, stressing, "Mr. Trump’s claims of no collusion are, in a word, hogwash. The only questions that remain are whether the collusion that took place constituted criminally liable conspiracy, whether obstruction of justice occurred to cover up any collusion or conspiracy, and how many members of 'Trump Incorporated' attempted to defraud the government by laundering and concealing the movement of money into their pockets."

Even when confronted with the prospect that he had been wrong for years, in August 2020, Brennan nevertheless interpreted the Mueller report to show "collusion between the Trump Campaign & the Russians."

Special counsel John Durham later revealed Brennan's public statements concerning the Russia hoax conflicted with testimony he gave on the matter as part of the investigation, reported Just the News.

Other members of the DHS' so-called expert group include:

  • Rajesh De, who served as White House staff secretary and general counsel of the U.S. National Security Agency in the Obama administration;
  • Tashina Gauhar, a former Department of Justice attorney who was reportedly deeply involved in the applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that were used to spy on the Trump campaign and has been accused of sitting on failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's emails with Andrew McCabe;
  • David Kris, nominated by Obama for assistant attorney general in charge of the DOJ's National Security Division — a post he held from 2009 to 2011; and
  • Francis Taylor, another Obama nominee who served as under secretary of homeland security for Intelligence and Analysis at the DHS from 2014 to 2017.

Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis Ken Wainstein claimed, "The Experts Group will be an invaluable asset as we navigate through this evolving threat and operating environment and continue to strengthen our efforts to protect the Homeland."

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Former FBI official who played key role in Trump-Russia probe is expected to plead guilty to Russian collusion



A former high-ranking FBI official who investigated former President Donald Trump for now-debunked ties to Moscow in 2016 is expected to plead guilty for some Russian collusion of his own.

Disgraced FBI agent Charles McGonigal, who ran counterintelligence for the bureau's New York field office, played a central role in triggering special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into fraudulent claims that Trump's campaign team colluded with Russia in order to win the 2016 election, reported Newsweek.

McGonigal had been serving as chief of the cybercrimes section of the FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., when first made aware of allegations that a Trump adviser was boasting about possible Russian dirt on failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

This information reportedly led to the FBI's launch of "Crossfire Hurricane."

While the FBI was looking into the Trump campaign for questionable Slavic connections, one of its own was allegedly working for Oleg Deripaska — a Russian oligarch and aluminum magnate who reportedly has links to Russian President Vladimir Putin and was ultimately sanctioned in 2018 by the U.S. Treasury Department for allegedly interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

McGonigal, arrested in January but subsequently freed on a $500,000 bond, has been accused of doing Deripaska's bidding on multiple occasions and trying to get him taken off the U.S. sanctions list.

According to his indictment, McGonigal agreed to help the daughter of Deripaska's Russian agent get an internship with the New York Police Department "in the fields of counterterrorism, intelligence gathering and 'international liasoning.'"

McGonigal is also accused of probing one of Deripaska's oligarchic rivals in exchange for concealed payments.

The disgraced FBI agent faces four counts: conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act; violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act; conspiracy to commit money laundering; and money laundering.

The former FBI agent has also been charged in a separate case for allegedly concealing $225,000 received from a former Albanian intelligence employee while still working for the bureau.

While legally required to report his engagements with foreign officials, McGonigal allegedly hid the ties.

The New York Times reported that the revelations about McGonigal's alleged conduct raised concerns about what agency secrets he might have divulged to foreign actors, although the FBI contends there is presently no evidence to suggest he did.

Manhattan federal Judge Jennifer Rearden indicated in a brief order filed Monday, "The court has been informed that defendant Charles McGonigal may wish to enter a change of plea."

The district judge set McGonigal's plea hearing for Aug. 15, where McGonigal may cop to money laundering and evading U.S. sanctions.

Neither the defendant's lawyers nor a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan responded to Reuters' requests for comment.

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'Schiff just hit the fan': House Republicans poised to censure Rep. Adam Schiff



The GOP-controlled House is poised to censure Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and possibly fine him $16 million for his role in advancing the debunked Russian collusion narrative, abusing the trust afforded him as chairman of the Intelligence Committee, and for behaving "dishonestly and dishonorably."

Now, it's just a matter of getting Florida Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna's resolution to the floor and seeing it through to a vote.

While House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) indicated he supports Luna's resolution and is "working with her on the best timing to bring it to the House Floor to help it pass," not all Republicans are on board with the current wording of the resolution.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) indicated that if the resolution comes to the floor, he will vote against it, noting, "I'm still litigating a federal lawsuit against Pelosi over a salary reduction she imposed on me for my refusal to wear a mask. ... The Constitution says the House may make its own rules but we can't violate other (later) provisions of the Constitution. A $16 million fine is a violation of the 27th and 8th amendments."

Republicans will need to present a united front to see the resolution through, as Democrats intend to introduce a motion to table or kill the resolution and are sticking together, reported Axios.

Luna, a member of the Freedom Caucus, suggested the vote will likely be held Thursday morning.

\u201cLooks like my vote to censure & condemn @RepAdamSchiff will likely be held Thursday morning.\u201d
— Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (@Rep. Anna Paulina Luna) 1686676571

The resolution, introduced by the Florida congresswoman May 23, accuses Schiff of abusing the trust afforded him while serving as ranking member and then chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. It further condemns him for behaving "dishonestly and dishonorably on many other occasions."

The resolution states Schiff cited evidence of collusion between former President Donald Trump and Russia "that — as is clear from reports by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz, and Special Counsel Durham — does not exist. ... By repeatedly telling these falsehoods, Representative Schiff purposely deceived his Committee, Congress, and the American people."

Luna's resolution also drags Schiff for:

  • lending "credibility to the Steele dossier — a collection of debunked collusion accusations funded by President Trump's political rivals — by reading false Steele allegation into the Congressional Record at a HPSCI hearing on March 20, 2017";
  • abusing his privileged access to classified information by composing "a false memo justifying the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant application on trump associate Carter Page, which Inspector General Horowitz later found was riddled with 17 major mistakes and omissions, provoking FISA Court Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer to state unequivocally that the Federal Bureau of Investigation acted to 'mislead the FISC'";
  • grossly violating Carter Page's civil liberties by smearing him "as a Russian collaborator and justifying spurious investigations of him";
  • "falsely denying that his staff coordinated with a whistleblower to launch the first impeachment of President Trump"; and
  • reciting "a false, concocted rendition of a phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky."

Luna claimed Schiff owes the American people a debt, as his "lies, misrepresentations, and abuses of sensitive information" resulted in a Russian-collusion investigation that cost taxpayers $32 million.

This figure appears to reflect the cost of the two-year special counsel investigation led by Robert Mueller as indicated in an expenditures report circulated by the Department of Justice in August 2019.

To recoup this debt, Luna suggested that Schiff be fined $16 million.

Concerning the forthcoming vote on the resolution, Luna tweeted, "Schiff just hit the fan."

Schiff hit Twitter with a response Tuesday, employing a turn of phrase coined by Adolf Hitler: "Today Rep. Anna Paulina Luna introduced a resolution to censure & fine me $16 million. Authors of the big lie are attacking me for telling the truth &holding Trump accountable. This is not just an attack on me—it’s an attack on our democracy & the institution of Congress."

\u201cICYMI\u2014Today Rep. Anna Paulina Luna introduced a resolution to censure & fine me $16 million.\n\nAuthors of the big lie are attacking me for telling the truth &holding Trump accountable.\n\nThis is not just an attack on me\u2014it\u2019s an attack on our democracy & the institution of Congress.\u201d
— Adam Schiff (@Adam Schiff) 1686687384

After first seizing upon the Republican effort to hold him accountable as a fundraising opportunity, Schiff later told CNN that he was "flattered" by the "MAGA resolution," which he suggested was a testament to his effectiveness.

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Unhinged leftist Keith Olbermann faces bipartisan scorn after demanding that Jake Tapper resign over admission Durham report is 'devastating to the FBI'



The Durham report, which revealed this week that the FBI investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign was baseless, has served to further discredit the already scandal-plagued bureau.

Even CNN's Jake Tapper felt compelled to admit on his show Monday that the report is "devastating to the FBI, and to a degree it does exonerate Donald Trump."

While Tapper attempted to pin some blame on former President Donald Trump, the CNN host nevertheless managed to draw the ire of Keith Olbermann, a YouTube personality unswayed by facts and ever committed to the debunked Russian-collusion narrative.

Olbermann demanded on Twitter that Tapper resign for noting the FBI's self-inflicted reputational wounds, which even the FBI has acknowledged in softened language to have been "missteps."

In response to Tapper's suggestion that the report is "devastating to the FBI," Olbermann tweeted, "It isn't. Not even close. No charges, just partisan 'conclusions.' And Tapper of the new non-journalist Chris Licht CNN is propagandizing," adding, "Jake Tapper needs to resign."

\u201cCNN's new scandal:\n\n@jaketapper says the Durham Report is "devastating to the FBI"\n\nIt isn't. Not even close. No charges, just partisan "conclusions." And Tapper of the new non-journalistic Chris Licht CNN is propagandizing\n\nJake Tapper needs to resign\u201d
— Keith Olbermann\u2199\ufe0f (@Keith Olbermann\u2199\ufe0f) 1684187251

In a rare show of unity and bipartisanship, Twitter users of various backgrounds and political persuasions blasted Olbermann over his viral tweet, which has over 570,000 views.

Investigative reporter Matt Taibbi wrote, "Keith, @JakeTapper is right. And the report isn't just devastating to the FBI, it's devastating to media figures who ran bogus stories that were either leaked by the Bureau, or laundered through it."

Taibbi then cited various instances where Olbermann previously peddled baseless agitprop on his now-defunct GQ show "The Resistance with Keith Olbermann."

Several of the show's episode titles allude to Olbermann's confident assertions of what have been demonstrated to be falsehoods: "Case Closed. Collusion Has Been Proven"; "A Timeline of Treason"; "Trump Will Not Be Cleared"; "Trump is Aiding the Enemy"; and "Trump is Lying About Russia."

Here is one of Olbermann's false reports from 2017:

Case Closed. Collusion Has Been Proven | The Resistance with Keith Olbermann | GQ youtu.be

In a subsequent tweet, Taibbi asked, "Which parts do you think are incorrect, Keith?"

Liberal journalist Eli Lake, who serves as contributing editor at Commentary, wrote, "This is the first resistance in the history of resistance to align itself with a federal police force," referencing Olbermann's former show "The Resistance," whereon he advanced falsehoods discredited in the Durham report and elsewhere.

Lake added, "To call Keith a buffoon is an insult to buffoonery."

One Twitter user wrote to Olbermann, "Your tears of denial are delicious."

Another commentator cut to the bone, writing, "It’s clear… you’re entire identity is tied to your Trump views these last 5 years."

The Durham report, which Olbermann does not consider to be "devastating," stressed that the Department of Justice and the FBI "failed to uphold their mission of strict fidelity to the law" when launching the probe into the Trump campaign.

Durham said the FBI utilized “raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence" to open the investigation into the Trump campaign but did not follow the same standard when approaching alleged election interference in relation to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

Durham also found that the FBI “did not and could not corroborate any of the substantive allegations” made in the infamous Steele dossier of lurid accusations against then-candidate Donald Trump, and "neither U.S. nor the Intelligence Community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation."

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Sen. Graham joins critics calling for Pulitzer Prize given to Washington Post and New York Times to be rescinded after Durham report proved their narrative to be 'politically motivated crap'



The Pulitzer Prize board honored New York Times and Washington Post reporters with a cash prize and its once-esteemed award in 2018 for peddling the thoroughly debunked Trump-Russia collusion narrative, which proved politically expedient for the liberal reporters' ideological comrades in Washington at the time.

In light of the damning Durham report, critics now reckon the awards to be albatrosses around the necks of those who dutifully worked to mislead the nation — put there by an organization apparently indifferent to the storm gathered as a consequence.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has joined those now urging that the Pulitzer Prize awarded to the staff at both papers be "taken back."

Graham told Fox News' "America's Newsroom" Tuesday that "we have a situation where the FBI ran every stop sign available, kept pushing a warrant against an American citizen based on a Steele dossier that was a piece of fiction. The information was supplied the FBI by two Russian agents. It was used to get a warrant against an American citizen to turn his life upside down and create a cloud of the Trump presidency and try to deny him the presidency."

With the full understanding provided in the Durham report that the investigation was from the get-go a stitch-up predicated upon a false claim, originally approved and advanced by failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Graham stressed that three things should happen:

First, Attorney General Merrick Garland "should pick up the phone and call all those that were harmed by this and say, 'Even though it didn't happen on my watch, I'll apologize to you. This is not the Department of Justice that I want you to believe in,'" said Graham.

Second, FBI Director Christopher Wray should "get on the phone and apologize to the people that had their lives ruined by the FBI."

Third, "the Pulitzer Prize given to the Washington Post and New York Times should be taken back because the entire episode was politically motivated crap. That's not something you should get a Pulitzer Prize for," added Graham.

Graham doubled down on this third suggestion Wednesday, tweeting, "Awarding the Washington Post and New York Times Pulitzer Prizes for reporting political fiction as fact regarding President Trump shows that these prizes are awarded not based on the product of your work, but the subject you go after. They should rescind the prize."

The awards in question went to the staffs of the New York Times and the Washington Post for what the Pulitzer Prize Board characterized as "deeply sourced, relentlessly reported coverage in the public interest that dramatically furthered the nation’s understanding of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and its connections to the Trump campaign, the President-elect’s transition team and his eventual administration."

The Daily Mail reported that the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post remains unrepentant.

"The Post stands by its reporting," said Jennifer Lee, a spokeswoman for the paper, citing a 2022 review by the Pulitzer board that claimed no aspect of the awarded stories "were discredited by facts that emerged subsequent to the conferral of the prizes."

This statement appears to indicate that false reports may be deserving of awards, just so long as the truth comes out after the receipt of the prize.

While the Washington Post evidently stands by past false narratives, the New York Times appears keen to downplay newly revealed truths.

In its Monday story on the Durham report, the Times claimed, "Mr. Durham’s 306-page report revealed little substantial new information about the inquiry," suggesting that Durham's hunt "for evidence to support Mr. Barr’s theory that intelligence abuses lurked in the origins of the Russia inquiry" had proven fruitless.

It added, "The special counsel’s final report nevertheless did not produce blockbuster revelations of politically motivated misconduct, as Donald J. Trump and his allies had suggested it would."

TheBlaze reported in 2019 that then-President Trump said the Pulitzer committee should revoke a joint Pulitzer Prize from both newspapers "for their coverage (100% NEGATIVE and FAKE!) of Collusion with Russia."

\u201cSo funny that The New York Times & The Washington Post got a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage (100% NEGATIVE and FAKE!) of Collusion with Russia - And there was No Collusion! So, they were either duped or corrupt? In any event, their prizes should be taken away by the Committee!\u201d
— Donald J. Trump (@Donald J. Trump) 1553901917

In response to Trump's suggestion, the New York Times wrote in a March 29, 2019, tweet, "We're proud of our Pulitzer-prize winning reporting on Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election. Every @nytimes article cited has proven accurate."

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) took to Twitter Monday to comment on the Durham report, writing, "Disgraceful. Obama-Biden officials and the corrupt corporate media pushed these piles of lies for years. Accountability now— starting with WaPo and The New York Times returning their Pulitzer Prizes for breathlessly spreading these ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ lies."

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) posed the question, "Ready to give your Pulitzer back now?"

\u201cReady to give your Pulitzer back now?\u201d
— Congressman Byron Donalds (@Congressman Byron Donalds) 1684186374

Sean Spicer, who served as press secretary and White House communications director under President Donald Trump, quipped, "How will the Washington Post send back its Pulitzer? USP, FedEx, UPS."

Former Georgia state Rep. Vernon Jones (R) wrote, "For three years the liberal media portrayed the now-infamous Steele dossier — the original basis for the Trump- Russian collusion claims — as true, and the New York Times and Washington Post received Pulitzer Prizes for a story that not only has been debunked but shown to be the product of Hillary’s Clinton’s presidential campaign."

The Georgia Republican suggested that it's time for the papers to issue apologies.

Graham Reacts to the Durham Report youtu.be

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