White House, Gabbard ramp up attacks on Obama over alleged Russia conspiracy

The attacks, which include Trump posting fake photos of Obama, coincide with pressure on the White House to release information about the US government’s investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.

US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard at the White House. Picture: AFP

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and the White House continued a multi-day barrage against Barack Obama, alleging the former president and senior officials in his administration manufactured a false conspiracy suggesting Russia interfered in the 2016 election to undermine President Trump’s victory.

Multiple investigations by Congress and the intelligence community have concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to sow confusion among the American electorate and that the Russians favoured a Trump victory over Hillary Clinton.

Gabbard said at a White House press briefing Wednesday that she has new information indicating that then-President Obama was closely involved in interfering in an effort to undermine Trump’s presidency and said that she had referred Obama to the Justice Department for potential criminal prosecution.

“There is irrefutable evidence that details how President Barack Obama and his national security team directed the creation of an intelligence community assessment that they knew was false,” Gabbard said, calling the idea that Russia interfered with the 2016 election a “contrived narrative.”

Declassified information Gabbard released Friday showed that Obama in December 2016 ordered a comprehensive intelligence assessment of Russia’s efforts to influence the election, yet didn’t appear to provide evidence that Obama ordered it to reach a particular conclusion.

Obama spokesman Patrick Rodenbush said on Tuesday that the allegations were “bizarre” and “a weak attempt at distraction,” and said: “nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but didn’t successfully manipulate any votes.”

Among the documents released was an email from an assistant to then-national intelligence director James Clapper calling for an assessment that “pulls together the information we have on the tools Moscow used and the actions it took to influence the 2016 election.”

US President Donald Trump reposted an AI video of former President Barack Obama being arrested and sent to jail. Picture: Truth Social

Gabbard declassified on Wednesday a House Intelligence Committee report — which a legislative aide said was compiled in 2017 when the panel was led by a Republican — that disputes the conclusion Russia favoured Trump’s victory. When asked what new evidence there was of political interference in intelligence assessments, Gabbard didn’t cite specific documents and said members of the media should review the documents she released.

“The evidence and the intelligence that has been declassified and released is irrefutable,” Gabbard said.

The CIA this month determined that the initial assessment that Russia interfered in the election in Trump’s favour was sound, despite quibbles with how the intelligence agency had reached that conclusion. The director of the CIA is John Ratcliffe, who served in Gabbard’s role in the previous Trump administration from May 2020 to 2021, before Trump left office.

“There was absolutely no pressure on my team by the White House, or by our director, in favour of a particular outcome,” said Susan Miller, a former CIA officer who was the agency’s director of counterintelligence in 2016 and worked on the Obama-ordered assessment.

“It was an analytic paper.”

Obama with Donald and Melania Trump at the state funeral for former US president Jimmy Carterin January. Picture: AFP

Gabbard’s moves come as Trump has ramped up criticism of his previous rivals, including Obama, former President Joe Biden and California Sen. Adam Schiff, the Democrat who prosecuted Trump’s first impeachment.

The attacks coincide with pressure on the White House to release more information about the U.S. government’s investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.

In a video posted to social media Wednesday, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Mark Warner (D., Va.), said Gabbard was trying to “rewrite history.”

Warner characterised her White House appearance as a deflection of public scrutiny away from the Epstein issue, while accusing Gabbard of revealing sensitive material by declassifying the House report “that had many of the sources and methods of how we spy, candidly, on Russia,” Warner said.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked at the briefing how exactly the president would like to see accountability for the alleged conspiracy.

In 2024, the Supreme Court affirmed that former presidents have broad immunity for official acts.

“It’s in the Department of Justice’s hands, and we trust them to move this ball forward,” Leavitt said.

The information that Gabbard said she has turned over would have been available to Trump and officials in the first term, and was investigated in several different ways.

Gabbard, when asked by a reporter why the information wasn’t declassified before, said Trump and her predecessors had “faced many challenges from those who were working in the government who sought to undermine his presidency.”

The Department of Justice announced Wednesday that it was forming what it called a “strike force” to examine Gabbard’s allegations. “We will investigate these troubling disclosures fully and leave no stone unturned to deliver justice,” attorney general Pam Bondi said.

Wednesday’s release followed Gabbard’s issuance Friday of a lengthy report that appeared to conflate two related but separate 2016 election issues: Russia’s support for Trump and the Kremlin’s capacity for changing votes.

A billboard in Times Square calls for the release of the Epstein files. Picture: AFP

The Friday report listed six instances from August to December 2016 of U.S. intelligence officials stating that Russia wouldn’t or didn’t manipulate the vote count in that election.

Last week’s report also said that Obama subsequently convened a National Security Council principals meeting in early December 2016 and requested an assessment that would address the “tools” Russia had used to influence the election, including hacking, leaks, media spin, intelligence, and “cyber activity against voting system.”

The recent release of documents has adjusted the president’s public view of Gabbard.

Twice in June, Trump rebuked Gabbard for congressional testimony in March during which she said that the U.S. intelligence community had assessed that Iran was “not building a nuclear weapon.”

“I don’t care what she said,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One. “I think they were very close to having one.”

At a White House reception Tuesday, Trump said Gabbard was “hotter than everybody. She’s the hottest one in the room right now.”

The Wall Street Journal