EXCLUSIVE: When President Donald Trump accused Barack Obama of treason, he didn’t panic or call a lawyer, Google cleaned it up for free.
A new Media Research Center study uncovered how Google manipulated its news tab to subvert Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s exposé on how the former president orchestrated the fabrication of intelligence behind the Trump-Russia collusion hoax.
The MRC found that Google actively protected Obama after Gabbard revealed how his White House schemed behind the scenes to override early assessments finding no pro-Trump Russian interference in 2016, instead pushing rushed intel to legitimize the salacious Trump-Russia collusion narrative.
Gabbard specifically asserted that Obama had manipulated intelligence to promote a “contrived narrative that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help President Trump win.” She said this was done to usurp the will of the American voter during her July 23 press briefing.
But Google quickly shut down the story by boosting articles on its news tab that, among other things, accused Gabbard in headlines of “lying,” called her statements a “desperate move” to distract from the Epstein claims, smeared her as pushing a “MAGA” conspiracy, and claimed she was trying to “rewrite” history. One article even mocked her evidence as “based on thin gruel.”
This is concerning, as according to a 2021 Pew Research Center survey, two-thirds of Americans get their news from search engines like Google, meaning they’re fed coverage through a leftist lens. And with tech’s growing reach, that number is only likely to rise.
These headlines were no anomaly, MRC found. Google flooded its news tab with leftist outlets—The New York Times, NBC News, The Atlantic, CNN, and others—all parroting Democratic talking points, casting doubt on the documents and working to dismiss Gabbard’s revelations.
Nearly every article relied on like-minded sources, seemingly aimed at muddying the facts and minimizing any political or criminal fallout for Obama. Even the right-leaning pieces Google chose to feature focused more on the left’s attacks than on Gabbard’s actual findings.
MRC’s findings: Among the news outlets categorized as either left- or right-leaning, nearly 90 percent of the sources displayed on Google’s news tab on July 24, 25, 28, and 29 were left-leaning. Just 10 percent were classified as right-leaning. MRC relied on media ratings firm AllSides and its bias chart to assess each outlet’s political slant, rather than making unilateral determinations.
In total, 37 outlets were identified—33 classified as left-leaning and just four as right-leaning.
All four right-leaning articles came from a single source: Fox News. Of those, three focused on attacks against Gabbard’s findings. In other words, 36 out of 37 stories pushed by Google amplified a leftist agenda.
One Fox News article, for example, covered Sen. Adam Schiff’s (D-CA) claims that Gabbard’s conclusion was “dishonest.” Two others were video articles showcasing NBC’s Kristen Welker grilling Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) over the documents.
That leaves just one article provided by Google that straightforwardly summarized the DNI accusations.
By contrast, the leftist outlets wasted no time smearing the revelations, with headlines like:
- “Trump’s Desperate Move to Quiet the Epstein Scandal” – The Atlantic
- “Why Tulsi Gabbard’s ‘treasonous conspiracy’ case against Obama is absurd” – MSNBC
- “Tulsi Gabbard’s ‘seditious conspiracy’ claim is based on thin gruel” – The Washington Post
- “Gabbard and White House ‘lying’ about intel on Russian interference in 2016, ex-CIA official says” – NBC News
- “Colorado lawmaker says Gabbard has become ‘weapon’ for Trump” – Politico
- “Gabbard’s Misleading ‘Coup’ Claim” – FactCheck.Org
- “Kaitlan Collins Confronts Tulsi Gabbard Over MAGA Obama Conspiracy” – Daily Beast
- “Gabbard pushes report on Obama and Russia probe as Trump faces pressure over Epstein” – PBS
- “How Tulsi Gabbard is trying to rewrite the history of the 2016 election” – CNN
Even the articles without overtly biased headlines skewed the story against Gabbard.
- The New York Times’ article about the DOJ investigating the revelations opened with the opening sentence describing her accusations as “unsubstantiated.”
- NBC News framed Obama’s response as a “high-wire act,” quoting aides who warned against “giving oxygen to unfounded Trump administration claims and allowing them to balloon unchecked.”
Methodology: The Media Research Center analyzed the first-page results of Google’s News tab for the search query “Tulsi Gabbard” on July 24, 25, 28, and 29. MRC archived each highlighted link and recorded the publisher in a spreadsheet in the order the outlets appeared.
MRC relied on ratings from AllSides, a media bias analysis firm, to determine each outlet’s political leaning.
In total, 42 articles appeared. Of those, 33 were labeled as either “Lean Left” or “Left” by AllSides, while only four were categorized as “Right.” For clarity and brevity, MRC grouped “Lean Left” and “Left” under the single designation of left-leaning. The rest were five articles viewed as “center.” The MRC excluded the “center” outlets from the left vs. right tally to highlight imbalance and Google’s preference for left-leaning sources, though “center” outlets also demonstrated bias against Gabbard.
MRC did not go beyond the first page of results, as studies consistently show that over 90 percent of Google users do not click past the first page.
