In a moment of vindication years in the making, Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo took a public victory lap Thursday after the Trump administration threw its weight behind claims that the Russia interference narrative in the 2016 election was manufactured by Democrats.
Bartiromo, a longtime critic of what she has called the “Russia hoax,” openly mocked her detractors in a fiery post on X, celebrating the latest revelations as a triumph for those “pursuing truth.”
“The liars & useful idiots attacked me for pursuing truth,” she wrote. “But today we know the hoax was in fact created by Democrats.”
Her remarks came just hours after a dramatic White House briefing led by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who laid out newly declassified documents that she said point to a “conspiracy” orchestrated by former President Barack Obama.
The documents, Gabbard said, suggest the Russia-Trump collusion narrative was knowingly inflated or even fabricated by key figures within the Obama administration.
“These revelations are serious,” Gabbard said during the briefing. “They point to a politicization of our intelligence system at the highest levels, and the consequences are still being felt.”
The Trump White House has stood squarely behind Gabbard’s findings, signaling that the Justice Department has received the materials and may consider prosecuting Obama for his alleged role.
While Gabbard’s claims sharply diverge from previous findings, including a bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report, she maintains the earlier assessments were incomplete and possibly manipulated.
Bartiromo has long been one of the few media figures to publicly question the mainstream narrative surrounding Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election.
As early as 2017, she was challenging Democratic lawmakers and intelligence officials on-air, demanding answers and transparency. At times ridiculed by left-leaning commentators and even fellow journalists, Bartiromo refused to back down.
“I asked the hard questions when no one else would,” she wrote on X Thursday. “I challenged the intel community, I challenged the media echo chamber. And now we see it—this wasn’t interference. It was interference theater.”
Critics continue to push back, claiming Gabbard is misinterpreting or “conflating” various reports and that her conclusions are not supported by prior investigations.
But Bartiromo and others argue that the emerging picture is far more complex—and damning—than previously understood.
With Gabbard handing the documents over to the Justice Department and President Trump urging legal consequences for those involved, momentum may be shifting in conservative circles that have long argued the Russia narrative was less about foreign interference and more about domestic political sabotage.
For Bartiromo, it’s not just a news cycle—it’s a reckoning. “The people who smeared me now have to answer for it,” she wrote. “Truth matters.”
And with renewed calls for accountability echoing through Washington, it appears the story that was once dismissed as fringe is now commanding the attention of the highest levels of government.
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