7 Media Mouthpieces Touted Lie That Russia ‘Hacked’ ’16 Election

The corporate media have insisted for years that Russia hacked the 2016 election or colluded with Trump to steal it. The hoax was already thoroughly debunked, but documents released by Tulsi Gabbard on Friday revealed that the Obama administration “manufactured” the evidence behind the narrative.

A House report Gabbard declassified on Wednesday further revealed how the Obama administration manipulated the contents of an intelligence report to push the claim that Putin “aspired” to help Trump. The “only classified information” cited as evidence for the assertion was “one scant, unclear, and unverifiable fragment of a sentence” in a “substandard” report. Nonetheless, the corporate media for years acted as willing propaganda arms for the Democrat Party, uncritically and relentlessly peddling the claim that Russia helped Donald Trump win in 2016. 

Following the release of the DNI report on Friday and the House report on Wednesday, legacy outlets unsurprisingly rushed to downplay the bombshells. While the media continue to run cover for themselves and the Obama administration, here is a reminder of seven Democrat mouthpieces who perpetuated the Russia collusion hoax. 

1. Washington Post

WaPo was responsible for breaking the story about the DNC server hack that became the basis for the Russia collusion hoax, and the publication has been running cover for the lie ever since. In late 2016, the Post brazenly regurgitated the purported CIA conclusion that “Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency.” The reporters who wrote the story were later awarded a Pulitzer for their false coverage.

On Wednesday WaPo’s home page was almost entirely devoid of any Russiagate coverage, though several reports debunking the paper’s earlier claims have been released in recent days. Buried near the bottom was the only headline touching the topic, which read, “Obama’s office: Trump administration’s treason claims are a ‘distraction.’”

2. Jake Tapper

Jake Tapper anchored the CNN segment that introduced the Russia collusion hoax to America via an interview with Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook. Tapper seemed initially skeptical, calling Mook’s accusation a “very, very strong charge,” but he became one of the foremost media propagators of the hoax, helping author what The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway called “the most important story of the entire Russia collusion hoax.”

He later denied his involvement in the Russia collusion hoax, telling J.D. Vance in an interview that he had only been covering an FBI investigation.

3. Stephen Colbert

Stephen Colbert, whose unfunny, leftist TV segment The Late Show was recently canceled by CBS, also peddled the hoax.

4. Margaret Brennan

In late 2016, Margaret Brennan published a story titled “U.S. has high confidence Russian intelligence agency hacked DNC, DCCC” that claimed Russia’s motivation was to aid Trump in winning the 2016 election.

Just before the 2024 election, she contributed to more fearmongering about Russian interference in America’s elections.

5. Jen Psaki

During her tenure as Biden’s press secretary, the now-MSNBC anchor blamed Trump’s win in the 2016 election on Russian interference. This willingness to lie should come as no surprise, considering that the former press secretary was subpoenaed in a lawsuit claiming the Biden administration conspired with tech companies to censor free speech. She also denied Biden’s cognitive decline while in office.

6. Karine Jean-Pierre

Years before she was tapped to be press secretary for the Biden administration, KJP was already towing the party line and peddling claims that Trump stole the 2016 election, ostensibly with Russia’s help. During her tenure at the White House, she refused to answer questions about the administration’s reaction to the Durham report, which concluded that the DOJ and the FBI “failed to uphold their mission of strict fidelity to the law” in their investigation into purported Russian interference in the 2016 election. She is also implicated in the cover-up of Biden’s decline.

7. The New York Times

Not satisfied with being one of the first outlets to tout the Obama intelligence agencies’ lie that Russia tried to get Trump elected, The New York Times was persistent in platforming the narrative throughout Trump’s presidency. Between 2016 and 2017, the publication released stories with titles like “C.I.A. Judgement on Russia Built On Swell of Evidence,” “Fact Check: Trump Is Contradictory On Comey And Misleading On Russia,” and “Russian Election Hacking Efforts, Wider Than Previously Known, Draw Little Scutiny.”

The Times also cast doubts on the 2024 election results. Writers outlined the supposed evolution of Russian strategy from misspelled Facebook posts to an AI-aided assault on democracy across multiple social media sites that also involved China and Iran. “But the broad goal of these efforts has not changed,” the authors wrote. “To sow discord and chaos in hopes of discrediting American democracy in the eyes of the world.”

Today, the paper released stories with headlines “Targeting Obama, Trump’s Retribution Campaign Takes Another Turn” and “Gabbard Releases Documents on Obama White House Amid Epstein Criticism,” attempting to spin Gabbard’s latest revelations against Trump.

As more evidence is released, President Trump seems more determined to bring the perpetrators of what Gabbard calls “the most egregious weaponization and politicization of intelligence in American history” to justice.

“They tried to rig the election, and they got caught, and there should be very severe consequences for them,” he said in a press conference yesterday.

Jacqueline Annis-Levings is a correspondent for the Federalist. She is a rising junior at Patrick Henry College, where she is majoring in English.