U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday accused his predecessor, Barack Obama, of “treason” and called for his prosecution over a new report alleging that senior officials in the Obama administration manipulated intelligence about Russian interference in the 2016 election.
The accusation followed the release of a controversial report by Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard, who claimed that Obama-era officials “manufactured” intelligence on Russian election interference in order to justify what she called a “years-long coup” attempt against Trump.
Gabbard said her office had submitted criminal referrals to the Justice Department, naming multiple Obama-era officials allegedly involved in what she described as a “treasonous conspiracy.” The report, published Friday, has already stirred significant backlash from intelligence and legal experts who say it contradicts the findings of multiple previous investigations.
Between 2019 and 2023, four major investigations—including by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the Senate Intelligence Committee, and the Justice Department’s inspector general—concluded that Russia did, in fact, interfere in the 2016 election to benefit Trump.
At a press event in the Oval Office alongside visiting Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., Trump was asked who should be prosecuted based on the new report.
“Based on what I read — and I read pretty much what you read — it would be President Obama. He started it,” Trump responded. He recently drawn criticism for posting an AI-generated video showing Obama being arrested.
Trump also named then-Vice President Joe Biden, former FBI Director James Comey, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and former CIA Director John Brennan as alleged co-conspirators. But he singled out Obama as the “leader of the gang,” calling his actions “treasonous.”
Trump has long dismissed the investigations into Russian election meddling and his campaign’s connections to Moscow as politically motivated and baseless, labeling them a “hoax.”
However, a bipartisan report from the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2020 — led by Republican Senator Marco Rubio, now serving as Trump’s Secretary of State — found that the Trump campaign actively sought to benefit from Russian interference, including the strategic use of hacked Democratic documents.
“The Russian intelligence services’ assault on the integrity of the 2016 U.S. electoral process — and the Trump campaign’s participation in and enabling of this activity — represents one of the most grave counterintelligence threats to American national security in the modern era,” the committee concluded.
AFP
