Eight months later, a suspiciously similar process is unfolding. MS NOW reported:

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has sent criminal referrals to the Justice Department related to a former intelligence community inspector general and a whistleblower whose complaint helped trigger the first impeachment of President Donald Trump.

The whistleblower complaint, deemed credible at the time by then-Inspector General Michael Atkinson, set off a chain of events that culminated in Trump’s impeachment in 2019 for pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate his then-political rival Joe Biden. The Senate later acquitted Trump in a largely party-line vote.

The criminal referral was first reported by Fox News. A spokesperson for Gabbard’s office confirmed to MS NOW that she had sent a criminal referral to the Justice Department but declined to provide further details. ....

As was the case last summer, her presentation — to the extent that one could credibly call it that — failed entirely to make a compelling case, which helped explain why the DNI’s allegations went largely ignored.

But by all appearances, the point wasn’t about exposing actual wrongdoing. Rather, Gabbard — no doubt aware of scuttlebutt about her possible firing after 14 months of failures, controversies and embarrassments — was likely trying to impress her audience of one.

There’s reason to believe it worked.

The president used his social media platform on Wednesday night to tout the DNI’s latest partisan antics, which followed two items posted earlier in the week, both of which were built around the idea that Gabbard’s latest foolishness should help the president’s crusade to “expunge” his first impeachment — a priority he has pushed intermittently for years.

Gabbard is engaging in such pitiful antics because her job likely depends on it. As for whether similarly situated loyalists at Main Justice are prepared to maintain the charade, watch this space.