Rep Jim Himes Attempts to Retain Disproven Trump-Russia Talking Points

Apparently, the best the Democrats could come up with to defend themselves against the truth provided by DNI Tulsi Gabbard, was to put Connecticut Representative Jim Himes on TV to push a series of lies that leftists are sworn to believe.

Four lies immediately stand out below. (1) Marco Rubio was not chair on the SSCI investigation of Trump-Russia, Richard Burr was. (2) John Durham was not appointed by Donald Trump. He was appointed by Bill Barr. (3) There is no evidence that “Russia hacked” the DNC servers. Even the FBI said there was no evidence. (4) Russians did not “buy reams of Facebook ads”, there was an indication that someone, who was likely Russian, spent $4,500 dollars on one ad promoting Jill Stein.

[Transcript] – MARGARET BRENNAN: Welcome back to FACE THE NATION. We are continuing our conversation now with Connecticut Congressman Jim Himes, who is the ranking member on the Intelligence Committee.

Congressman, I want to pick up on that topic.

Just a statement of fact here. A bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee investigation found that the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment of Russian interference in the 2016 election was correct, they deemed it to be so on a bipartisan basis. I’m saying that because today, and yesterday, the director of the intelligence community, Tulsi Gabbard, has said that she is referring for prosecution former American officials she accused of treasonist conspiracy, a year’s long coo against President Trump because they assessed Russia had tried to influence the election. This is weeks after the CIA director issued a report critiquing the tradecraft that went into that 2016 assessment.

Is there any legal basis for any kind of prosecution here?

REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES (D-CT): None. Absolutely none, Margaret. What you saw from the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, was not just a lie, but a very dangerous lie. Because when you start throwing around language like sedition and treason, somebody’s going to get hurt.

Now, you pointed out that the Senate committee, then led by Marco Rubio, a Republican and now secretary of state, found unanimously that Russia medaled in the election to try to assist Donald Trump. John Durham, special council appointed by Donald Trump, investigated this, fund that the Senate report was correct.

Now, what Tulsi is doing, it’s a little slight of hand but it’s worth focusing on. She is saying that the Intelligence Committee early on said that the Russians could not use cyber tools to mess with the voting infrastructure, the machines that tally our votes. That was true then and it is true now. Though the Russians tried to break into a couple of states’, you know, election technical infrastructure, they didn’t do it. But it is well known and well established that the Russians hacked into the DNC and undertook any number of influence operations, including buying reams of Facebook ads, to discredit Hillary Clinton. That is not in contention, right?

And what is horrifying about this whole lie out of Gabbard is, number one, it puts people at risk. And right now, you know, the mouth breathers on MAGA online are just going out of their minds based on a lie. And, number two, the intelligence community is full of very, very good people who do their jobs every single day and now they’re watching their leader do something that each and every one of them knows is dishonest and it is a really, really bad thing for the safety and security of the American people when that dynamic is – is – is out there.

MARGARET BRENNAN: That Senate report is online. The findings are – are there. But I understand your distinction there. It’s an important one in influence verses physical hacking.

You are –

REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: But, by the way, Margaret, if I may.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: If I may. You asked about the referral.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: Here’s the test. This is Epstein all over again. Criminal referrals. We’re going to prosecute Barack Obama. You know, treasonist and seditious. Here’s the thing. And I hope that four, five, six weeks from now. Don’t take it from this Democrat. Four or five, six weeks from now, let’s see if this administration, Tulsi Gabbard accusing a former president of treason, let’s see if they bring charges. They won’t. They won’t, because there’s not a judge in the land, not a single judge, who will treat this with anything other than laughter that will be heard from the Atlantic to the Pacific in this country.

So, the test of this is, four, five, six weeks from now, is the DOJ bringing charges.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: And the answer to that is no. And now we’re going to be in Epstein world. We’re like, wait a minute, treasonist conspiracy by a former president. Why isn’t the Department of Justice bringing charges? And the answer to that question is that it is a lie.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Understood.

On the other topic I want to ask you about, as a Democrat, “The New York Times,” the DNC – is reporting the DNC’s examination of what went wrong in the last election is going to steer clear the decisions made by the Biden turned Harris campaign.

You were very direct early on in calling for then President Biden to drop out of this race. You don’t parse your words normally. Do you actually think it is possible for your party to self-diagnose problems without looking at the presidential race itself in terms of the candidates?

REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: Look, we – we – we need to acknowledge, and every – and all of America saw it on the night of the disastrous debate in the July before the election, that Joe Biden was not going to win the election. That was not just evident in the debate, it was evident in the polling that his people were keeping from him. OK, so that is a fact.

Now, Democrats are a big tent party. We go from Joe Manchin, who’s practically a Republican, to AOC, we is a Democratic socialist. So, we always have a struggle in coming up with sort of one set of policies, one set of messaging. And it’s particularly hard to do when we don’t have a presidential candidate. You know, a presidential candidate, of course, attracts the attention, is sort of the one person who must run nationwide and speak for the party as a whole. Right now we’re having a lot of conversations with a lot of different views. And I understand that’s enormously frustrating to Democrats who are so upset over the result of the election.

But, you know, other than fight back with the tools that we have right now, we’ve got to be introspective about what we have done wrong that resulted in a dramatic win by Donald Trump in 2020.*

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: There’s an awful lot of rage in the Democratic Party. And my message to my Democratic friends is, fine, I get the rage, believe me.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: I was in the chamber on January 6, 2021, and worried for my own life. But the thing to do right now is to be introspective and ask yourself –

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

REPRESENTATIVE JIM HIMES: What can we do better to appeal to more people, including those people that we have lost time and time again in elections?

MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.

Fifteen months out from the mid-term races.

Congressman Jim Himes, thank you.

We’ll be right back.

[END TRANSCRIPT]