Politically Unstable: How Trump persevered in the face of 'Russiagate'

Video

Monday, August 4, 2025

Washington Times Commentary Editor Kelly Sadler sits down with Rowan Scarborough to analyze the bombshell information released regarding the ’Russiagate’ plot against President Trump.

[SADLER] Rowan, you have covered this since day one. And a lot of our readers know about this because of your reporting, well back into 2016, this story is a decade old. But the mainstream media still hasn’t gotten it. They still are refusing to cover it, and they don’t understand if there’s a “there” there. They think it’s ridiculous; it’s something that President Trump is bringing up to stomp out the Epstein drama.

But there is an actual story. Just a simple yes or no. And then we can jump into your reporting and the importance of this. For all of those Democrats or for our viewers out there who don’t really understand if this is a big story or not, here are a few questions and answers.

Was the Steele dossier a fabrication designed to smear Donald Trump? Yes or no?

[SCARBOROUGH] Yes.

[SADLER] Did the original draft of the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment, the ICA, state that Russia did not seek to assist Donald Trump in the 2016 election, yes or no?

[SCARBOROUGH] Yes.

[SADLER] Did Barack Obama then direct, using non-standard procedures that cut out the usual intelligence experts at the ground floor who make such assessments, that the ICA be changed to state that Russia did seek to assist Donald Trump in the 2016 election? Yes or no?

[SCARBOROUGH] I would say no to that.

[SADLER] There was a meeting though.

[SCARBOROUGH] Yes.

[SADLER] We’ll dive in deeper on that. Were the Steele dossier and the modified ICA used to obtain numerous search warrants against Trump’s inner circle in 2016, yes or no?

[SCARBOROUGH] Yes…

[SADLER] Did all the above cost much of the general public to believe the first Trump presidency was illegitimate and greatly reduce the first Trump administration’s ability to enact the agenda of the constitutional will of the American electorate who elected him to the presidency, yes or no?

[SCARBOROUGH] I would say no. He persevered. Against an unrelenting bogus attack, 2017, 2018, 2019, but he is such a strong figure that he resisted it and went to the American people and told them how it was a hoax. It was fake news. And he had, ultimately, a successful presidency. But you’re right, Kelly. The forces, what is so good about the Radcliffe report and Tulsi Gabbard’s report is, for the first time, it put emphasis on what I would call the fifth player and the fourth player in the Russia hoax. And that’s the intelligence community. We never, despite Mueller and Durham and DOJ IG report, we did not really know what Brennan and Obama and Clapper did vis-a-vis the Russia hoax, and now we know for the first time.

The Russia hoax began with the Hillary Clinton campaign. That’s where it began in July 2016. After the DNC was hacked, they decided that they were going to blame the hack on Putin and Trump, and they put out the word to the media, anybody who would listen to them, that’s what happened. And in the meantime, they had the Steele dossier on the assembly line, starting to come into Washington with all its egregious allegations against Trump. I would say 10 felonies in all that were unfounded and then that hits town. Christopher Steele arrives in September to start selling it to the Washington press corps.

And the second player here is the FBI. It became the Clinton campaign’s co-conspirator. It was more than willing to take the dossier and traffic it all over town. James Comey took it to district court judges to get wiretaps. He took it to the intel community. The FBI leaked it to Senator Reid on the Hill, knowing that he would spread it around. And then Comey takes it, trafficked it to the president-elect himself, to rattle him basically because Crossfire Hurricane was underway — the FBI investigation — and he takes it there under the guise that he’s going to enlighten Trump on what’s going on. And really, he did it as a part of Crossfire Hurricane. He tells them there’s some salacious material out there, and I wanted you to know about it, but he never tells them it’s a Democratic Party smear.

[SADLER] He did it as leverage. He went into Trump Tower knowing that the incoming president was under investigation, never told him what it was about or what it was based on, to get the upper hand on Donald Trump.