US President Donald Trump on Tuesday accused his ex-president, Barack Obama, of “treason” and called for his prosecution over a report alleging that officials in the Democrat’s administration had manipulated information on Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.
Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence (DNI), has sent criminal referrals to the Justice Department in response to a report published Friday alleging that Obama officials were part of a “treasonous conspiracy”.
Gabbard asserted that Obama and his team fabricated information about Russian election influence to initiate a protracted coup against President Trump.
Her report contradicts information gathered in four different criminal, counterintelligence, and watchdog investigations conducted between 2019 and 2023, all of which determined that Russia intervened on Trump’s behalf in the 2016 election.
During a press conference with visiting Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos in the Oval Office, the Republican leader was asked who the department should target in light of the report.
“Based on what I read — and I read pretty much what you read — it would be President Obama. He started it,” said Trump, who was criticised on Monday for sharing an AI-generated video of Obama being arrested.
Trump also accused Obama’s then-vice president Joe Biden, former FBI Director James Comey, former DNI Director James Clapper, and former CIA Director John Brennan of being part of a conspiracy.
However, he claimed that Obama was the “leader of the gang” and accused him of “treason”.
Trump has argued since their inception that the multiple investigations into Russian influence in the 2016 election, as well as his own campaign’s involvement, were a “hoax”.
A bipartisan assessment by the Senate Intelligence Committee, under then-acting chairman Marco Rubio, now Trump’s secretary of state, found in 2020 that the Trump campaign intended to “maximise the impact” of disclosures of Democratic material taken by Russian military intelligence.
The hack’s goal was to benefit Trump while harming Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.
“It is our conclusion… that the Russian intelligence services’ assault on the integrity of the 2016 US electoral process, and Trump and his associates’ participation in and enabling of this Russian activity, represents one of the single most grave counterintelligence threats to American national security in the modern era”
