During the Senate Watergate hearings that eventually brought down the presidency of Richard Nixon, Republican Sen. Howard Baker (Tenn.) asked a question that would live in infamy: “What did the president know, and when did he know it?” Now, nearly 50 years later, the question again begs to be asked.

This time, about a different president: What did Barack Obama know, and when did he know it?

As RedState reported late last week, Special Counsel for the Justice Department John Durham’s indictment of Igor Danchenko, the principal source for the bogus Steele dossier used by the FBI as a basis for the Trump-Russia “collusion” investigation, further illustrates that Durham has his sights set on the 2016 presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton. Hardly a shock, although the irony is beautiful:

In an attempt to frame Donald Trump for colluding with Russia, Hillary, in effect, colluded with Russia.

But what about Obama?

While “What did Obama know, and when did he know it?” is a good question, here’s an even better one: What did Obama do, and when did he do it? Let’s take a quick trip in the Wayback Machine.

Retired U.S. Army Intelligence Officer Tony Shaffer shared his thoughts about the alleged involvement of Obama during an appearance on “Fox & Friends” in March of 2017, as reported by PJ Media. Shaffer suggested that Donald Trump’s accusations that prior to the 2016 election the Obama administration was wiretapping Trump Tower were not only true but “very likely” approved by Obama, himself.

“This is completely insidious. This is an order of magnitude worse than Watergate — where you’ve actually used the mechanisms of the state — the power of the state to go after a candidate [for the] presidency.”

Shaffer added: “This is Soviet behavior. This is the very thing the Soviet Union would have engaged in during the Cold War.” In a tweet last week — five years to the day since his appearance on “Fox and Friends” — Shaffer fired off an “I told you so.”

Reminder – I went on the record — on live TV and said on 5 March 2017 that Obamagate was a setup – and that all roads would lead to Barack Obama — some of us were never fooled by the Russian Collusion Narrative Hoax.

Was Shaffer right?

Reminder – I went on the record – on live TV and said on 5 March 2017 that Obamagate was a setup – and that all roads would lead to @BarackObama – some of us were never fooled by the Russian Collusion Narrative Hoax…https://t.co/sLoleDlCit

— Tony Shaffer (@T_S_P_O_O_K_Y) November 5, 2021

So, again: What did Obama know, and when did he know it?

What Did Obama Know and When Did He Know It? https://t.co/FgkEmkja5T

— Bo Snerdley (@BoSnerdley) November 11, 2021

Author Jack Cashill on Wednesday also asked the question in an extensive report for The American Spectator. As Cashill sees it, “it is becoming increasingly clear that then-President Obama was very much in on the effort to smear Donald Trump as colluding with Russia.”

Cashill referenced his 2020 book, “Unmasking Obama: The Fight to Tell the True Story of a Failed Presidency,” in which he blistered not only Obama but the liberal media for colluding with the Obama administration, as well. (Emphasis, mine.)

During the Obama years, an asymmetrical media war was waged to control the critical first draft of American history. There is no fair way to record that history without first acknowledging the war. The field of battle shaped up as follows:

On the right, the alternative conservative media and the “responsible” right, occasionally working together, often working at odds.

On the left, the mainstream media, the social media giants, Hollywood, Broadway, the federal bureaucracies, [and] the national security apparatus.

“Rarely at odds,” Cashill observed, “these forces routinely worked together to amplify what Obama adviser Ben Rhodes famously called the White House’s “messaging campaign.” Money, resources, and power overwhelmingly favored the left, but the right had the equalizer on its side — the truth.”

In the Spectator report, Cashill said he focused on one question above all others while researching his book: What did Barack Obama know about the plot to link Donald Trump to Russia, and when did he know it? Unlike the Watergate era, Cashill observed, when all the insiders in government and media rushed to discover what Nixon knew, only the outsiders have dared to ask about Obama.

The information contained in Durham’s recent indictment of Russian national Igor Danchenko, when coupled with the CIA notes declassified in October 2020 by Ratcliffe, leads directly to the White House. In the past week, these revelations have gotten a fair share of attention, at least on the right side of the blogosphere. They deserve it.

What has not gotten attention, however, is the specious counter-narrative that Obama and his allies have been quietly constructing for the last five years.

Deconstructing this counter-narrative may not put Obama’s Praetorian guard in prison, but it should provide Watergate-level amusement for those of us who believe prison is where Obama’s people belong.

Cashill went on to describe a 2017 Washington Post article that reported on an early August 2016 “intelligence bombshell” sent by the CIA to then-President Obama with “eyes only” instructions. “To guard against leaks,” the Post continued, “subsequent meetings in the Situation Room followed the same protocols as planning sessions for the Osama bin Laden raid.”

The Post identified CIA Director John Brennan as the man who sounded the alarm. Brennan first alerted the Obama White House in early August of 2016 that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered an operation to defeat or at least damage Hillary Clinton and help elect Trump, as recounted by Cashill.

As you read this, are you asking yourself, “How much clearer could it be?” How many dots must be connected to figure this whole thing out? Three? Four, tops?

Obama and Brennan knew by early August 2016, said Cashill, that the FBI was investigating the Trump campaign’s alleged involvement in the collusion plot.

Importantly, they also knew the investigation was based on a Clinton dirty trick. At this point, [Former FBI Director James] Comey may not have known. If Durham can get someone to talk about these meetings — a big “if” — CNN may even pay attention.

Of Comey’s involvement, Cashill wrote:

Comey would surely have known about Clinton involvement by September 7, 2016. On that date, the CIA sent a memo to the FBI — attention Peter Strzok — relating “US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s approval of a plan concerning US presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian hackers as means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server.”

Although Obama has been largely quiet about how “he and his team transformed a Hillary-approved plot to kneecap Trump into a massive, multi-year government-run plot to do the same,” Cashill observed, “his colleagues have been more forthcoming.”

“The story they told did not have to be true,” said Cashill.

“As with all cover-ups, it merely had to be plausible.”

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