This is CBS Eye on the World. Here's John Batchelor.

Kelsey Gabbard is the Director of National Intelligence. And over these last days, Ms. Gabbard has made allegations that come down to this.

During December of 2016, following the election of Donald Trump for the first time,

the Obama administration's principal national security leadership came together

to concoct an allegation that Vladimir Putin wanted Donald Trump to win the election, and therefore everything

else follows, including Russian interference. Andy McCarthy of the National Review Online,

and Thaddeus McCart of American Greatness, joined me to comment on the assertion by the

Director of National Intelligence and the story as we have watched it very carefully for gentlemen I have to now say we've been out this for eight years Andy a very good evening to you the concoction eight years later we're not, but please reveal what it means concocted.

Good evening to you.

Good evening, John, and Thaddeus.

You know, I think the best way to describe what happened here is that whether you call it a political dirty trick or there's a more severe

term for it, the Obama Justice Department, the Obama administration had a legitimate reason to conduct

a foreign counterintelligence investigation, not just in 2016, but really based on

what we know from some of the materials that have been disclosed, going back to 2014,

because there were legitimate concerns of Russian attempts to infiltrate our election system.

They were conducting reconnaissance of it. They were looking for weak parts in the system.

The intelligence community ultimately concluded that they didn't actually do anything in 2016

that would have changed any votes. But there was a lot of concern that they didn't actually do anything in 2016 that would have changed any votes,

but there was a lot of concern that they were up to no good. And there is, there have been

findings unanimously across the intelligence community that Russia did try to meddle in the 2016

election, which isn't surprising. The Soviets

did it going back decades. We do it to them as well. And that they did try to denigrate,

...