Anatomy of a Coup: The Obama-Era Big Lie That Launched a National Delusion

American  Thinker 

This is the third installment in a series. Read Part I: “They Buried the Truth to Destroy Trump” and Part II: “The Analyst Who Knew Too Much”

They didn’t just bury the truth. They built a monument to their Big Lie.

It’s a term the left loves to wield—usually against their enemies, never themselves.

But the real Big Lie was the con they ran on the American people: the Russia Hoax. And that monument? It’s now crumbling beneath a flood of declassified documents pouring into public view.

Yes, it matters in this moment. The truth matters. And despite the tired, flailing insistence that there’s “nothing new” here, there’s plenty we’ve learned—and much more still to come.

By mid-December 2016, Obama administration officials knew four things:

• The Russians had not tampered with the vote.
• The Steele dossier was Clinton-funded opposition research.
• Intelligence analysts did not concur that Russia had favored Trump, and
• The Clinton campaign had crafted a plan to falsely link Trump to Russia—specifically to distract from her political vulnerabilities.

But none of that mattered to them.

According to the newly declassified July 2025 HPSCI report, the goal was never to deliver a balanced intelligence product. It was to impose a narrative—one that could politically wound the incoming president and reverse the result they had failed to prevent at the ballot box.

The December that follows a presidential election is supposed to be a time of transition—especially after a hard-fought campaign. The American tradition holds that even in defeat, power is transferred peacefully and honorably. For years, the left has sermonized about the sacred duty of a “peaceful transition of power.”

There was nothing peaceful about December 2016. What unfolded was a deliberate, coordinated attempt to undermine—and ultimately destroy—the incoming Trump administration before it ever took office. It was sabotage on a historic scale.

The outgoing Obama team sought to compromise Trump’s ability to govern from Day One. In their bitterness, they were willing to paralyze the government itself.

They wanted Trump to fail—and with him, America.

That’s why this may be the most nefarious political scandal in American history.

And so they did what they always do: they cooked the books, silenced the dissenters, and blamed their misdeeds on someone else.

Projection is their default. The lies, the scandals, the abuses—they graft onto their enemies what they themselves have done. They invert the truth with surgical precision—because they know all too many in the media will amplify it.

It is long past time for accountability.

This deliberate campaign to cripple a duly elected president and his incoming administration was a premeditated act. They weaponized our intelligence agencies, shredded constitutional norms, and poisoned faith in our republican institutions.

They jeopardized U.S. foreign policy, triggered a diplomatic breakdown with the world’s most heavily armed nuclear power, and made America—and our allies—less safe.

All because they lost an election.

The House Intelligence Committee’s newly declassified findings are staggering.

The Intelligence Community Assessment wasn’t an objective appraisal—it was a politically commandeered document, warped into an anti-Trump manifesto, and riddled with deviations from established tradecraft.

Its key judgment—that Russia favored Trump—was inserted over internal dissent and lacked firm evidentiary support.

Far from a neutral analysis, the ICA was a custom-built narrative. And it served a deeply partisan end: to delegitimize, discredit, and ultimately destroy the duly elected President of the United States.

To this day, for many on the left, it remains a sacramental truth—their secular catechism. The Russia Hoax is the origin story of their hatred for all things Trump. They cling to it with theological fervor, facts be damned.

Yet here are key findings from the declassified House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) report—findings that Russia itself withheldfrom public amplification during the 2016 election, undercutting any supposed preference for Donald Trump:

• Russian intelligence assessed that top Democrats—including President Obama—were alarmed by Clinton’s health. The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) reported that Democratic leaders viewed her condition as a serious threat to her election prospects, citing “psycho-emotional problems,” including “uncontrolled fits of anger, aggression, and cheerfulness.”
• Clinton was allegedly on a regimen of “heavy tranquilizers” and suffered from multiple serious health conditions, including type 2 diabetes, ischemic heart disease, deep vein thrombosis, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
• SVR intercepts revealed internal DNC communications outlining a plan to falsely tie Trump to Russia. These communications described Clinton as “obsessed with a thirst for power”. They also indicated that her campaign sought to distract from her political vulnerabilities by linking Trump to Russian interference.
• The SVR obtained intelligence indicating political interference in the FBI’s Clinton email investigation. Russian sources reported that senior DOJ officials were briefing the Clinton campaign on the status of the probe—and that pressure was being applied to limit the inquiry’s scope.
• The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) reported secret meetings between State Department officials and religious groups,in which U.S. officials allegedly offered increased U.S. funding (e.g., via USAID) and diplomatic backing for their work in post-Soviet countries—conditioned on support for Clinton’s candidacy.
• Intelligence disputed that Russia favored Trump. Internal dissent existed when the ICA was drafted; some analysts concluded the evidence reflected a disruption strategy, not a preference for Trump.
• ICA authors and investigators were blocked from accessing key records. Critical context was withheld, impeding an objective intelligence product.
• The ICA violated tradecraft and internal standards by ignoring evidence that Putin withheld damaging material on Clinton. Despite having “significant information available to Moscow to denigrate Secretary Clinton,” the ICA did not incorporate it—violating the standard requiring inclusion of all relevant intelligence.

They knew the truth. They lied. They manipulated. And they got away with it—until now.

The Brennan-Clapper-Comey axis didn’t act as guardians of national security. They worked as saboteurs—partisan operatives in suits and lanyards, weaponizing America’s intelligence agencies to sully a duly-elected president.

The Russia Hoax wasn’t just a smear. It was a state-sponsored clandestine attack—waged by U.S. officials against the incoming government.

A silent coup, cloaked in classified briefings and choreographed leaks. And it has echoed ever since.

The implications are sweeping. The examination of the Big Lie has only just begun. But the accountability phase is long overdue.

The American people weren’t simply misled—they were targeted and deceived not by foreign adversaries, but by domestic conspirators embedded in the highest ranks of power. Their goal wasn’t to defend democracy. It was to override it.

History will deliver its verdict. But justice—real, unapologetic, and unrelenting—must not wait that long.