Obama breaks silence on Trump’s ‘outrageous’ call to prosecute him
Office of ex-US president breaks precedent and warns that allegations of attempted ‘coup’ are ‘attempt at distraction’
In a rare and forceful move, Barack Obama has pushed back against Donald Trump’s incendiary demand for his prosecution, fiercely rejecting allegations that he orchestrated a coup after the 2016 election and fabricated intelligence about Russian interference.
Obama’s office, typically restrained in public comment, issued a firm statement after Trump accused the former president of committing “treason” by supposedly leading a conspiracy to undermine the outcome of the 2016 race. Trump alleged Obama had tried to “manufacture” evidence of Russian meddling to discredit his presidency.
"Out of respect for the office of the presidency, our office does not usually respond to the relentless stream of falsehoods and distortions coming from this White House,” the statement read. “However, these baseless allegations cross a line. They are absurd, and clearly a clumsy attempt to deflect attention.”
The unusually direct rebuttal came days after former Congresswoman and current Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released an 11-page document recommending the Justice Department investigate and potentially prosecute Obama-era officials for what she called a “treasonous conspiracy.”
Obama’s office directly addressed Gabbard’s report, stating: “There is nothing in the document released last week that undermines the widely accepted conclusion that Russia attempted to influence the 2016 presidential election, although it did not succeed in altering vote counts.”
The statement also referenced a 2020 bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report, led by then-Chairman Marco Rubio, that affirmed the consensus among intelligence agencies regarding Moscow’s interference efforts.
Trump’s renewed attacks on Obama occurred during a White House appearance alongside Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the president of the Philippines and son of the former dictator overthrown during the country’s 1986 “People Power Revolution.”
Responding to a reporter’s question about who should be the focus of the investigation urged by Gabbard’s report, Trump replied, “If you look at what I’ve seen — and it’s what you’ve seen — it begins with President Obama. Biden was involved, Comey was involved, Clapper was involved, the whole crew.”
He then added, “But the ringleader was Barack Hussein Obama. You’ve heard of him, right?”
Trump continued his barrage: “We’re not just talking about suggestions. This is proof. Solid, irrefutable proof that Obama was trying to lead a coup. He worked with Hillary Clinton, Comey, all of them. Obama ran the whole show.”
“This is treason. This is sedition. This is everything you can imagine. They tried to steal the election and hide it from the American people. It’s bigger than anything we’ve seen before.”
Trump further claimed that Gabbard informed him that even more materials were on the way.
“She told me there are thousands more documents. It’s the most shocking thing I’ve ever read,” Trump said. He then appeared to pivot, calling for people to “stop talking about nonsense” — a veiled nod seemingly aimed at his base, who have been pressing for the release of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier who died in jail in 2019.
Despite Trump’s claims, Gabbard’s report has been widely criticized for distorting facts and drawing misleading conclusions. It argues that the Obama administration pressured intelligence agencies to manipulate findings, but experts say it conflates unrelated issues and selectively interprets classified briefings.
The intelligence community's original 2017 assessment stated unequivocally that Russia sought to assist Trump and harm Clinton’s campaign, including through the hacking and release of Democratic National Committee documents. However, it also concluded that no votes were changed through cyberattacks on election systems.
Critics say the Gabbard report misuses that latter conclusion to suggest no interference took place at all — a claim that runs counter to the findings of both Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s 2019 investigation and the Senate Intelligence Committee’s bipartisan report in 2020.
One national security veteran, Fulton Armstrong, a former CIA analyst and senior intelligence officer, told The Guardian via email that Gabbard’s document was clearly biased.
“It was clearly written to support a conclusion that was already decided,” Armstrong said. “Even a quick read shows serious confusion between intelligence confidence levels and probabilities — it’s either sloppy or intentionally misleading.”
He didn’t hold back in his broader critique: “The bigger issue is that Tulsi’s report is garbage. Her use of phrases like ‘deep state’ makes it sound more like a political stunt than a serious document.”
“She’s good at exploiting confusing language and cherry-picked examples to make her point. But something as complex as Russian election interference — involving analysts from multiple agencies — is bound to leave traces that can be twisted into a partisan narrative,” Armstrong added.
While Obama’s team rarely wades into Trump-era controversies, this time the former president’s office drew a line, denouncing what it sees as a deliberate campaign of distraction from real issues — and warning against undermining faith in the U.S. intelligence community for political gain.
Former President Obama should sue the living crap out of donald j trump and his entire bootlicking loyalists! Mr. Obama should take his old disgusting pedophile white ass to the right court by the right judge. So he should do that ASAP today."
I can’t wait for Marco Rubio to answer questions about this. Will he backpedal and toe the party line? Probably if he wants to keep his job. His boss is famous for throwing people under the bus.