US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has levelled serious accusations against Former President Barack Obama. Releasing a report on Friday, she took aim at the ex-commander-in-chief and his old administration’s officials for purportedly manipulating intelligence in connection with Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential election win.
Amid the raging Epstein case backlash against the Trump administration, Gabbard’s move seeks to establish that there is no solid proof supporting claims that Russian interference tampered with the election vote count in the president’s favour. Her memo aligns with the MAGA leader and his supporters insisting that a conspiracy was crafted by Democrats to discredit his presidential victory in 2016.
Obama accused of ‘treasonous conspiracy’
Accusing Obama and ex-senior national security officials of “treasonous conspiracy,” she said that the former government during the Democratic leader’s term “[laid] the groundwork for … a years-long coup” against present-day President Trump, who defeated Hillary Clinton in the election at the time. The former Democratic Congress member goes on to assert that Obama and his team manufactured intelligence to show that Russia had interfered with the election.
Calling for them to be prosecuted over these allegations, Tulsi Gabbard stated, “The information we are releasing today clearly shows there was a treasonous conspiracy in 2016 committed by officials at the highest level of our government.”
Their goal was to usurp President Trump and subvert the will of the American people.
— DNI Tulsi Gabbard (@DNIGabbard) July 18, 2025
No matter how powerful, every person involved in this conspiracy must be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The integrity of our democratic republic depends on it.
We… pic.twitter.com/KJ7qrmMv0k
“Their goal was to subvert the will of the American people and enact what was essentially a years-long coup with the objective of trying to usurp the President from fulfilling the mandate bestowed upon him by the American people…”
Like Trump, Tulsi Gabbard counters Russia ‘hoax’
Pushing for potential criminal referrals, Gabbard also maintained that her office would be sending over all the gathered evidence backing her claims to the Department of Justice. In addition to targeting Obama, she also named her predecessor, aka former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, ex-CIA Director John Brennan, then-FBI Director James Comey, then-secretary of state John Kerry, former National Security Adviser Susan Rice and then-deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe in Friday’s memo.
Gabbard’s office has released her commentary on the matter along with memos from the Obama term. Addressing what Trump has often dismissed as the ‘Russia hoax,’ the document says, “Deep State officials in the IC [intelligence community] begin leaking blatantly false intelligence to the Washington Post … claiming that Russia used “cyber means” to influence “the outcome of the election.”
It further notes that another leak to the outlet claimed that the CIA “concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened” in the 2016 election “to help President Trump.”
Despite the hefty Russia claims and reports of the time, even the Obama administration, as underlined in the Senate report, determined there was “no evidence that any votes were changed or that any voting machines were manipulated.”
🧵 Americans will finally learn the truth about how in 2016, intelligence was politicized and weaponized by the most powerful people in the Obama Administration to lay the groundwork for what was essentially a years-long coup against President @realDonaldTrump, subverting the… pic.twitter.com/UQKKZ5c4Op
— DNI Tulsi Gabbard (@DNIGabbard) July 18, 2025
Democrats and Republicans react to Tulsi Gabbard’s memo
Much like several other Democrats, House Intelligence Committee ranking member Jim Himes issued a statement, implying Trump was merely attempting to change the topic from the Epstein saga by focussing on resurfacing years-old claims.
“It’s a day that ends with ‘y’ and Donald Trump desperately wants to change the subject, so Director Gabbard is rehashing decade-old false claims about the Obama Administration. Few episodes in our nation’s history have been investigated as thoroughly as the Intelligence Community’s warning in 2016 that Russia was interfering in the election,” he said.
“Every legitimate investigation, including the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee investigation, found no evidence of politicization and endorsed the findings of the 2016 Intelligence Community Assessment.”
On the contrary GOP officials praised Gabbard. “DISMANTLING THE DEEP STATE!” Speaker Mike Johnson wrote on X. “The Russia hoax was a political hit job manufactured by Obama officials and weaponized by intel agencies to take down President Trump. Accountability is long overdue!”
This is surreal. Here in America, the Director of National Intelligence @DNIGabbard is now stating emphatically that a former President of the United States @BarackObama attempted a coup against the @POTUS @realDonaldTrump .
— General Mike Flynn (@GenFlynn) July 18, 2025
This is why @TulsiGabbard was attacked so relentlessly… pic.twitter.com/v0dK5xoKwb