Trump Targets Obama, Alleges Treason Amid 2016 Russia Probe Claims

• Facing scrutiny over Epstein, Trump retaliates.
• Claims suggest Russia aimed to harm Clinton.
• Trump has consistently targeted Obama.

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump accused former President Barack Obama of committing “treason,” without offering any evidence, claiming Obama led a scheme to falsely associate him with Russia in an effort to undermine his 2016 presidential run.

An Obama spokesperson dismissed Trump’s assertions, stating, “These absurd allegations are ludicrous and serve as a feeble attempt to distract.”

While Trump has often criticized Obama by name, he had not previously leveled such serious criminal accusations against his Democratic predecessor since returning to office in January.

During his remarks in the Oval Office, Trump seized on comments made by his intelligence chief, Tulsi Gabbard, on Friday, in which she suggested referring officials from the Obama administration to the Justice Department for prosecution regarding an intelligence evaluation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.

She declassified documents asserting that the information she released indicated a “treasonous conspiracy” by key Obama administration officials to sabotage Trump, a claim Democrats labeled as false and politically motivated.

“It’s clear, he’s guilty. This amounts to treason,” Trump declared on Tuesday, though he presented no evidence. “They attempted to steal the election, they obscured the process. They committed acts no one would have imagined, not even in other nations.”

A January 2017 assessment by the U.S. intelligence community revealed that Russia, utilizing social media disinformation, hacking, and bot farms, sought to damage Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign while bolstering Trump’s candidacy. The assessment noted that the actual impact of these efforts was likely limited and found no evidence that they changed election results.

A bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report from 2020 concluded that Russia collaborated with Republican political operative Paul Manafort and the WikiLeaks site to influence the 2016 election in favor of Trump’s campaign.

“Nothing in the document released last week by Gabbard undermines the widely accepted conclusion that Russia attempted to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully tamper with any votes,” said Obama spokesperson Patrick Rodenbush in a statement.

Trump Under Fire

Trump, known for promoting unfounded conspiracy theories, has consistently dismissed these evaluations as a “hoax.” Recently, he shared a fabricated video on his Truth Social account depicting Obama being arrested in handcuffs in the Oval Office.

Seeking to shift focus from mounting pressure from his conservative base regarding the release of information about Jeffrey Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking charges, Trump quickly transitioned to attacking Obama and Clinton when asked about Epstein.

“The real witch hunt you should focus on is how they caught President Obama completely off guard,” Trump said.

Trump implied that actions would soon be taken against Obama and his former officials, labeling the Russia investigation as treasonous and suggesting Obama was guilty of “leading a coup.”

“It’s time to take action against those responsible for what they did to me. Regardless of whether it’s right or wrong, we need to pursue these individuals. Obama has been directly implicated,” he stated.

Democratic Representative Jim Himes countered on social media, “This is false. If he’s confused, the President should consult @SecRubio, who helped lead the bipartisan Senate investigation that unanimously found no evidence of politicization in the intelligence community’s actions regarding the 2016 election.”

Former Republican Senator Marco Rubio is currently Trump’s Secretary of State.

Since regaining office, Trump has sharply criticized his political adversaries, asserting they weaponized the federal government against him and his allies over the January 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol and regarding his handling of classified documents after his presidency.

Attacks on Predecessors

Trump has long made Obama a primary target. In 2011, he accused Obama of being unqualified to serve as President, which prompted Obama to publicly confirm his citizenship by releasing his birth certificate.

In recent months, Trump has not hesitated to launch intense verbal attacks against both of his Democratic predecessors in ways that are nearly unprecedented in contemporary politics.

He initiated an inquiry after alleging, without evidence, that former President Joe Biden and his team conspired to use an autopen, a device that replicates a person’s signature, to sign sensitive documents on Biden’s behalf. Biden responded, calling the assertion false and “ridiculous.”

Gabbard’s accusation that Obama conspired to undermine Trump’s 2016 campaign through manipulated intelligence reports on Russian interference contradicts a CIA review conducted by Director John Ratcliffe and released on July 2, a 2018 bipartisan Senate report, and declassified documents that Gabbard herself released recently.

The documents reveal that Gabbard conflated two distinct U.S. intelligence findings, claiming that Obama and his national security aides altered an assessment indicating that Russia was not attempting to influence the election through cyber means.

One finding stated that Russia wasn’t trying to hack U.S. election infrastructure to alter vote counts, while the other indicated that Moscow likely employed cyber tactics to sway the political landscape in the U.S. through information and propaganda operations, including stealing and leaking data from Democratic Party servers.

The January 2017 U.S. intelligence assessment, commissioned by Obama, built upon the latter finding: that Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized influence operations to help sway the 2016 election in Trump’s favor.

The review led by Ratcliffe identified flaws in the assessment but did not dispute its conclusions, affirming the “quality and credibility” of a highly classified CIA report upon which the assessment relied.