Opinion | Why Tulsi Gabbard's 'treasonous conspiracy' case against Obama is absurd
Zeeshan Aleem
Fri, July 25, 2025
As President Donald Trump tries to quiet a rebellion from his own base over his administration’s decision to withhold the release of the complete Jeffrey Epstein files, his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, is going on offense.
Through memos and documents released both last week and this week, Gabbard is attempting to advance the evidence-free claim that officials in former President Barack Obama’s administration engaged in a “treasonous conspiracy” and “coup” attempt in 2016. Gabbard alleges the Obama administration manipulated intelligence assessments that found that Russia sought to tip the election in favor of Trump, with the purported goal of destroying Trump politically. Gabbard has recommended criminal charges, including against Obama himself, while pushing this nonsensical narrative.
While the reports bring a bit of new information to light about U.S. intelligence operations, they don’t dislodge the many well-substantiated assessments indicating Russia intervened in 2016 to hurt Hillary Clinton and boost Trump. The timing of the release does suggest, however, that Gabbard is scrambling to find some way to satisfy people in the MAGA base hungry for a new conspiracy theory as the administration tries to leave the Epstein story behind.
Gabbard’s maneuvering appears to be an attempt to put meat on the bones of Trump’s longtime narrative that all the investigations showing Russia tried to help Donald Trump win the 2016 election were a “hoax.” On Friday, she released a memo, emails and intelligence documents that she effectively claimed were proof that Russia didn’t try to interfere in the 2016 election. But as CNN points out, her main argument rested on a sleight of hand:
She cited an intelligence document that purportedly said Russia ‘did not attempt to affect the outcome of the election.’ In fact, that document — a President’s Daily Brief, or his daily intelligence report — merely said Russia hadn’t impacted the election results ‘by conducting malicious cyber activities against election infrastructure.’ “It was referring narrowly to a very specific (and severe) type of potential election interference. The Obama administration never alleged such interference took place or that Russia manipulated actual votes that were cast.”
In other words, Gabbard used a cherry-picked quote to conflate the idea that Russia didn’t actually target election infrastructure and attempt to alter vote counts with the idea that Russia didn’t interfere at all.
On Wednesday, Gabbard announced a new document release, which included a declassified report put together by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee in 2020 about the 2017 intelligence community assessment of Russian interference. As NBC News reports, “The Republican report was emphatically rejected at the time by Democratic lawmakers on the panel who played no role in its creation.”
NBC News explains that the report found that even the deeply partisan Republican report found most of the 2017 intelligence community assessment on Russian interference in the election “sound,” but it took issue with the reliability of the sources it depended on to come to the conclusion that Russian President Vladimir Putin “aspired” to help Trump. That’s fine to document for the historical record, but it’s hardly some kind of smoking gun of a conspiracy.
And Gabbard conveniently skips over the fact that an incredibly rigorous bipartisan Senate investigation released the same year landed somewhere different. As NBC News summarizes it:
The 2020 Senate investigation, which spanned three years, involved more than 200 witnesses and reviewed more than a million documents, endorsed the intelligence agencies’ assessment that Russia had spread disinformation online and leaked stolen emails from the Democratic National Committee to undermine Clinton’s candidacy and bolster Trump’s prospects. Trump’s current secretary of state, Marco Rubio, was the acting chair of the Intelligence Committee at the time. He and every other member of the committee, both Republicans and Democrats, endorsed the report’s findings.”
The Obama administration and intelligence community’s approach to the matter was also covered extensively through a Justice Department report in 2019, special counsel Robert Mueller’s report in 2019 and a report by special counsel John Durham in 2023. If there was some grand conspiracy by Obama officials to mess with the intelligence assessment and destroy Trump, both Republicans and Democrats had plenty of opportunity to find it.
The sloppiness of what Gabbard is presenting only confirms what has been widely suspected about her actions: that it’s a weapon of distraction. And it doesn’t seem like a coincidence that she claims to have uncovered evidence of a shadowy “conspiracy” at the exact moment that Trump is being accused by both Democrats and Republicans of covering one up. It all looks like an attempt to find some red meat for the base. Fox News appears to be taking the bait, pushing the unsubstantiated Obama conspiracy theory on its shows at a far greater rate than the Epstein story. The appetite of Trump’s base, however, is less predictable on this story.
At the same time, Gabbard’s new anti-Obama offensive also functions as an opportunity for her to move to the center of things in the White House, particularly after she clashed with Trump over Iran. As my colleague Steve Benen noted, “If the DNI were looking for a way to return to the president’s good graces, she apparently found one.”
What better way to excite her boss than with a brand-new conspiracy theory?
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
Massive spike in threats against Obama after Trump team claims he committed ‘treason’
Ariana Baio
Thu, July 24, 2025
Threats made online against former president Barack Obama spiked over the weekend after Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard accused him of a years-long coup attempt against President Donald Trump.
Gabbard has claimed Obama and his top officials ran a “treasonous conspiracy” by insinuating they manufactured an investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election to undermine Trump’s first election.
Hours after she made the claim, on July 18, violent rhetoric about Obama surged on platforms such as Truth Social, Telegram, and Gab, with some calling for his arrest, imprisonment, and execution.
That rhetoric was intensified after the president posted an artificial intelligence-generated video of Obama being arrested and continued to re-post Gabbard’s claims throughout the weekend.
By July 19, threatening comments targeting Obama rose from three to 56 – a more than 1,700 percent increase, according to the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism.
Truth Social, Gab, and Telegram users sent violent political threats against former president Barack Obama after the Trump administration pushed its theory about the 2016 Russia investigation (Getty Images)More
Truth Social users posted rhetoric calling for a “firing squad,” a “public hanging,” and “streaming” his execution live – all while decrying Obama for the alleged treason.
One user called for Obama’s execution by using memes of a guillotine, electric shock chair, and public hanging platform.
For years, Trump has blamed Obama and other Democrats for abusing power to facilitate investigations or indictments into himself. Since taking back the White House, Trump has promised to conduct a campaign of retribution against those he believes have targeted him.
The documents Gabbard referred to as evidence of Obama’s meddling show that the Obama administration wanted a review of the allegations against Russia before leaving office and pressured intelligence agencies to work quickly.
A spokesperson for Obama denied Gabbard’s allegations, calling them “bizarre,” “ridiculous,” and “a weak attempt at distraction.
Tulsi Gabbard alleged Barack Obama's involvement in a 'coup' on Wednesday (Getty Images)
The Global Project Against Hate and Extremism said similar violent rhetoric increased on Gab, a platform known for platforming right-wing extremists.
Between July 17 and July 20, comments targeted Obama as treasonous and deserving punishment rose from nine to 48, a more than 400 percent increase.
Gabbard and White House 'lying' about intel on Russian interference in 2016, ex-CIA official says
NBC News
A review of targeted comments made on Telegram in the same timeline revealed that threats against Obama rose from zero to 12.
Harrison Fields, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement, “As a survivor of multiple assassination attempts, the President takes these matters extremely seriously. The White House condemns all acts of violence, and anyone engaging in such behavior will be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”
Gabbard releases more Russia documents, prompting concerns over intel sources
Olivia Victoria Gazis
Thu, July 24, 2025
Washington — Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Wednesday declassified additional materials on the intelligence community's assessment of Russia's actions in the 2016 election, claiming in a social media post and at a White House press briefing that they showed Obama administration officials "manufactured" information in order to undermine then-candidate Donald Trump.
Her statement on X said the documents show Obama officials "manufactured the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment that they knew was false, promoting the LIE that Vladimir Putin and the Russian government helped President Trump win the 2016 election."
Democrats disputed her claims and accused Gabbard of misrepresenting the intelligence findings. Wednesday's report follows a separate set of declassified documents on the matter released by Gabbard last Friday. In a memo accompanying those documents, she similarly accused Obama administration officials of plotting a "years-long coup" against Mr. Trump.
Obama's spokesperson Patrick Rodenbush said in a statement regarding the first set of materials, "These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction," he said, a likely reference to turmoil in Congress over the release of files related to child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Rodenbush also said nothing in last week's documents "undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes." Rodenbush has not responded to the most recent release of material.
Gabbard also said in her X statement that it was Mr. Trump who made the decision to declassify the House Republicans' report.
The Wednesday release was a declassified report that was compiled in 2017 and finalized in 2020 by the House Intelligence Committee's Republican majority — where FBI Director Kash Patel was a lead staffer at the time, according to two sources familiar with the matter. It focuses at length on the intelligence community's judgment that Russian president Vladimir Putin aspired to help Mr. Trump to win the 2016 election.
It includes discussions of raw intelligence provided by a human source to the CIA, as well as Signal intercepts gathered by the National Security Agency, prompting concerns from current and former intelligence officials and condemnation from Democrats about the risks it could pose to sensitive intelligence sources and methods.
But the report does not fundamentally change previous assessments by the U.S. intelligence community — or the multiple reviews that followed.
"The desperate and irresponsible release of the partisan House intelligence report puts at risk some of the most sensitive sources and methods our Intelligence Community uses to spy on Russia and keep Americans safe," Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner said in a statement. "And in doing so, Director Gabbard is sending a chilling message to our allies and assets around the world: the United States can no longer be trusted to protect the intelligence you share with us."
An Office of the Directorate of National Intelligence official said the president's ultimate declassification authority meant he was not obligated to consult with intelligence agencies about redacting sensitive content in the report.
At the White House briefing Monday, Gabbard accused President Obama of "leading the manufacturing of this intelligence assessment." She told reporters that the documents would be sent to the Justice Department and FBI for investigation of "criminal implications."
Asked by CBS News correspondent Ed O'Keefe whether she thinks Obama is guilty of treason, Gabbard responded that she would leave criminal charges to the Justice Department, but said what occurred "can only be described as a years-long coup and a treasonous conspiracy against the American people."
She declined to directly answer another question from O'Keefe about how the latest declassified documents change previous assessments, given that the Senate Intelligence Committee — which included then-Sen. Marco Rubio — dedicated an entire volume of its five-volume investigation to the intelligence community's analysis..
"[W]e are ensuring that the intelligence community is not being politicized, Gabbard said. "Look at the evidence and you will know the truth."
The House committee's Republican-authored report criticizes the review of the analysis underlying the assessment that went into the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment, or ICA, for several reasons, including that its production was rushed to be released before Mr. Trump took office. It also claimed analysts failed to consider plausible alternative explanations for Putin's intentions and questioned whether they sufficiently took into account the human source's motivations, proximity to Putin or bias towards Mr. Trump.
The GOP House committee report zeroes in on a piece of intelligence contained in a report from a human source that it contends was subjected to "questionable interpretation" by analysts.
"The unclear fragment (shown in bold) is part of a sentence in a [redacted] that reads, 'Putin had made this decision [to leak DNC emails] after he had come to believe that the Democratic nominee had better odds of winning the U.S. presidential election, and that [candidate Trump] whose victory Putin was counting on, most likely would not be able to pull off a convincing victory,'" a bullet says on page 4 of the report.
It adds that a senior CIA operations officer said at the time, "We don't know what was meant by that" and "five people read it five ways."
The findings align in many areas with a separate tradecraft review released earlier this month by CIA Director John Ratcliffe, which determined that the confidence level in the assessment that Putin aspired to help Mr. Trump win should have been "moderate" instead of "high," chiefly because it was derived from one source instead of multiple. The CIA's report, however, did not include any detailed discussion of the sensitive sources or methods involved.
The CIA's own review of the intelligence that informed the finding on Putin's preference "confirmed that the clause was accurately represented…and that the ICA authors' interpretation of its meaning was most consistent with the raw intelligence." It more broadly found that much of the tradecraft underlying the 2017 assessment was "robust and consistent" with analytic standards.
The CIA declined to comment on the report released by Gabbard.
Democrats seized on the timing of the disclosures — which they pointed out could have been made at any time during the first Trump administration or since he took office for a second time.
"It's appropriate that this shoddy and partisan report was released by Director Gabbard on the day that House Republicans are quite literally fleeing Washington, D.C., for six weeks rather than releasing the Epstein files that Trump is so desperate to cover up," said House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Jim Himes.
"Given the rushed and unusual 'declassification' process the DNI has implemented, I fear that the public release of this report could compromise sensitive sources and methods and endanger our national security," Himes said.
Trump DOJ sets up ‘strike force’ to probe unfounded Obama ’16 vote claims
Dave Goldiner, New York Daily News
Thu, July 24, 2025
President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice has set up a “strike force” to probe unfounded claims that former President Barack Obama illegally pushed allegations that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to boost Trump.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said she’s eager to “investigate potential next legal steps” following the release of a report on the issue from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard that accused Obama of hatching a “treasonous conspiracy.”
“We will investigate these troubling disclosures fully and leave no stone unturned to deliver justice,” Bondi said in a statement.
Impartial analysts say there is nothing new in Gabbard’s dossier and no evidence of wrongdoing by Obama. It doesn’t refute the widely accepted fact that Russia sought to influence the 2016 campaign on Trump’s behalf and against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
Critics say administration officials are seeking to gin up new controversies to distract attention from the politically damaging calls for Trump to release more information on the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking case.
Trump has no secret of his intent to use federal law enforcement to suit his own personal and political interests, effectively rejecting decades of independence for the Department of Justice.
Gabbard has claimed that newly declassified files prove a “treasonous conspiracy” by the Obama administration in 2016 to politicize U.S. intelligence in service of casting doubt on the legitimacy of Trump’s White House win.
The intelligence chief cited emails from Obama officials and a 5-year-old classified House report in hopes of undermining the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to boost Trump and denigrate Clinton.
Russia’s activities during the 2016 election remain some of the most examined events in recent history.
Multiple bipartisan investigations, including one led by now-Secretary of State Marco Rubio, found that Russia sought to interfere in the election through the use of social media and hacked material.
The evidence doesn’t back the notion that Russia successfully hacked voting machines or rigged voting totals to help Trump and hurt Clinton. But Obama never claimed that it did, and publicly said there was no evidence of vote tampering in December 2020 as Trump prepared to take office for his first term.
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