7 days ago
Obama's office rebukes Trump admin's treason claims as ‘distraction'
Former president Barack Obama's office on Tuesday issued a rare admonishment of the Trump administration's claims that Obama administration officials planned a 'treasonous conspiracy' aimed at the current commander in chief, calling the claims 'a weak attempt at distraction.'
Last week, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released alleged evidence of what she called a 'treasonous conspiracy in 2016 committed by officials at the highest level of our government.' The evidence pertains to the intelligence community's conclusion that Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to interfere in the 2016 presidential election on Trump's behalf. The Washington Post Fact-Checker found that the evidence on which Gabbard based her findings is paper-thin and discounts more substantiated intelligence findings.
Patrick Rodenbush, a spokesperson for Obama, said in a statement that while the office 'does not normally dignify the constant nonsense and misinformation flowing out of this White House with a response,' the administration's new 'bizarre' and 'ridiculous' allegations warranted one.
'Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes. These findings were affirmed in a 2020 report by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, led by then-Chairman Marco Rubio,' Rodenbush wrote, referring to Trump's secretary of state.
Earlier Tuesday, Trump said a criminal investigation should move forward as a result of the findings, saying, 'it's time to go after people.' He singled out Obama, who he said had been 'caught directly.'
Gabbard, in a Tuesday interview on Fox News with the president's daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, said that Obama's office was deflecting.
'There is a long laundry list of facts and intelligence reporting that directly contradict the statement coming from President Obama's office and those who are trying to deflect away from what actually happened,' Gabbard claimed. ' … After Donald Trump was elected, led by President Obama, there was an effort to create a document that would serve as a foundation for what would be a years-long coup against President Trump, therefore trying to subvert the will of the American people who sent him to the White House in 2016.'
Cleve R. Wootson Jr. contributed to this report.
