Trump accuses Obama of treason, demands prosecution

Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard has sparked a political firestorm after submitting criminal referrals to the U.S. Department of Justice, alleging that former President Barack Obama and several of his top officials were involved in what she described as a “treasonous conspiracy.”

The explosive accusations are linked to a new report released Friday, in which Gabbard claims that Obama-era officials deliberately manufactured intelligence suggesting Russian interference in the 2016 election. According to her, this was part of a calculated effort to delegitimize then-candidate Donald Trump and pave the way for what she characterized as a “years-long coup” against his presidency.

Gabbard’s assertions sharply contradict the findings of four major investigations conducted between 2019 and 2023, including criminal, counterintelligence, and inspector general probes. Those investigations consistently concluded that Russia did, in fact, interfere in the 2016 election with the intent of helping Trump win.

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The Republican leader was asked whom the department should target over the report during an Oval Office press event with visiting Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos.

“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 criticized on Monday for sharing an AI-generated video of Obama being arrested.

Trump also singled out Obama’s then-vice president Joe Biden, former FBI director James Comey, former DNI director James Clapper and former CIA director John Brennan as being part of a conspiracy.

But he said the “leader of the gang” was Obama, accusing him of being guilty of “treason.”

Trump has claimed since they were launched that the various probes into Russian interference in the 2016 election — and his own campaign’s involvement — were a “hoax.”

A bipartisan report by the Senate Intelligence Committee — spearheaded by then acting chairman Marco Rubio, now Trump’s secretary of state — found in 2020 that the Trump campaign sought to “maximize the impact” of leaks of Democratic documents stolen by Russian military intelligence.

The aim of the hack was to help Trump and hurt Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton during 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 modem era,” the report said.

(AFP)