It Wasn't Russia. It Was the White House.

When Donald J. Trump shocked the world by defeating Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, the political establishment went into vicious overdrive. Within days of his election, the media began promoting a new narrative, soon to be known as the “Russia Hoax”—that Russia had intervened to help Trump win. But behind the scenes, was something even more calculated unfolding between then-President Barack Obama and the defeated candidate, Hillary Clinton?

To be clear, there is no public record of a meeting between Hillary Clinton and President Obama in the weeks following the election. However, for years speculation has swirled about a quiet, off-the-books conversation—perhaps a lunch—held somewhere in the White House between Obama and Clinton. If such a meeting occurred, what was said could have contributed to one of the most explosive cover stories in modern American political history.

Clinton’s memoir What Happened confirms only that President Obama called her late on election night, urging her to concede quickly “for the good of the country.” She did so the next morning. But the abrupt shift in national focus—from Clinton’s stunning loss and the growing legal scrutiny of the Clinton Foundation to a full-scale media blitz around Trump-Russia collusion—happened almost overnight. The speed and coordination suggest more than coincidence.

On December 9, 2016, The Washington Post published what would become a pivotal leak: the CIA had assessed that Russia interfered in the U.S. election with the intent of helping Donald Trump secure victory. The leak ignited a media firestorm and swiftly redirected the national conversation. Almost overnight, coverage of Hillary Clinton’s private email server, pay-to-play allegations, and questions surrounding foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation disappeared from front pages. But why? Who was responsible for burying these stories—and to what end?

New clarity emerged on July 21, 2025, with the declassified release of internal documents by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley. The documents reveal the FBI’s tepid handling of the Clinton email investigation and include long-sought materials from the so-called “Clinton annex,” an appendix to the Justice Department Inspector General’s June 2018 report. Grassley’s press release accompanying the declassification offers further insight into how and why Clinton controversies faded from public scrutiny at a critical political moment.

Stunningly, in this very same document, the person who is mentioned is none other than the president himself, Barack Obama. According to page 7 of the document, Obama “sanctioned the use of all administrative levers to remove possibly negative effects of the FBI investigation of the Clinton Foundation and the email correspondence of the State Department.”

Grassley’s press release highlights an FBI cover-up that would protect Clinton and Obama from scandal and would derail the narrative Obama wanted at the time:

“This document shows an extreme lack of effort and due diligence in the FBI’s investigation of former Secretary Clinton’s email usage and mishandling of highly classified information,” Grassley said. “Under Comey’s leadership, the FBI failed to perform fundamental investigative work and left key pieces of evidence on the cutting room floor. The Comey FBI’s negligent approach and perhaps intentional lack of effort in the Clinton investigation is a stark contrast to its full-throated investigation of the Trump-Russia collusion hoax, which was based on the uncorroborated and now discredited Steele dossier. Comey’s decision-making process smacks of political infection.”

“I warned years ago that the Clinton investigation failed to hit the mark, and I’m grateful the American people can finally see the facts for themselves,” Grassley continued.

Now back to July 2025. According to a declassified 2025 CIA Tradecraft Review commissioned by former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) John Ratcliffe who is now CIA Director, the intelligence community’s assessment was anything but objective. Ratcliffe’s June declassification found that the December 2016 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) was “rushed,” “politicized,” and produced without proper analytic rigor. Brennan, Clapper, and Comey worked in lockstep to frame the ICA as a consensus product, even as dissenting voices were excluded.

This conclusion was confirmed again with DNI Director Tulsi Gabbard’s declassified release on July 18, 2025. The more than 100 pages of documents prove the IC community repeatedly told leadership and Obama that Russia “neither had the intent nor the capability” to hack the U.S. election in 2016, according to Secretary Gabbard.

In a July 20, 2025 interview with Fox News reporter Maria Bartiromo, Gabbard explains in no uncertain terms Obama’s involvement in the “years-long coup” against President Trump based on the documents she declassified:

“In the months leading up to the November 2016 election, the intelligence community agreed that there was no intelligence that reflected that Russia was trying to hack the election in favor of either candidate. The evidence showed the intelligence showed that, again, Russia did not have either the intent nor the capability to be able to impact the outcome of the United States election,” Gabbard explained.

“So it was very striking,” Gabbard continued, “When we look back again at the documents that I declassified and released, they show there was a shift in early December, the 1st week of December. Again, another document was produced by the Intelligence Community for the President’s Daily Brief that was consistent with every other assessment that was done previously leading up to the election. Russia was not, did not––this is after the election now–– did not attempt to affect the outcome of the American election. That document was never published.

“Hours before it would have gone into President Obama's Daily Brief,” Gabbard added, “It was pulled by a senior level intelligence official saying that they had to pull it because they had received new guidance. (Hmm I wonder who gave that “new guidance.”)

“The very next day, this meeting was called, said Gabbard. “It was a National Security Council meeting, bringing all together all of the senior leaders of President Obama's cabinet and the topic that was put forward was a sensitive matter. The tasks that came out of that meeting were coming from President Obama directing the intelligence community, then Obama's ODNI Director Clapper to produce an a document to produce an intelligence assessment that detailed, not whether, but how Moscow affected the the outcome of the election that had already occurred electing Donald Trump to the presidency. This document that they published in January of 2017 was the foundational groundwork that they continued to reference over and over and over again to enact the years- long coup against president Trump.”

Remember, during that period, FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page privately messaged about an “insurance policy” in case Trump won—a policy that now looks remarkably like the manufactured narrative that that emerged in the July 18 declass.

But why the sudden urgency? Why the need to redirect? One could easily argue the following also influenced the Russia Hoax operation––

The Clinton Foundation was under intensifying scrutiny in late 2016. Lawmakers had called for investigations. FOIA lawsuits were moving forward. Reports linked donations from foreign governments to favorable treatment at the State Department while Clinton served as Secretary. Had any of this led back to the White House, it could have tainted President Obama’s legacy—and exposed his own role in approving questionable deals and ignoring red flags.

That’s where the alleged secret meeting might come in.

Suppose Clinton privately warned Obama that if the investigations into her conduct at State or the Foundation moved forward, it wouldn’t stop with her. Emails, memos, and donor connections could trace back to the West Wing. If true, the political cost to Obama and the Democratic Party could be devastating. A distraction—no, a counter-attack—was necessary.

Thus, there was one more compelling reason for a narrative change. The Clinton Foundation vanished from scrutiny. In its place came a relentless push to delegitimize Trump’s win. Leaks flowed. Investigations launched. The Mueller probe followed. And for years, headlines were dominated by a hoax and Trump’s mandate to carry out the mission given to him by the American people was materially crippled. There is little doubt at this point that the real interference in the 2016 election came not from Moscow, but from inside the highest levels of our own government.