Trump Says Obama Should Be DOJ’s Top Target in Wake of Intelligence Report
President Trump on Tuesday called for the Department of Justice to focus directly on former President Barack Obama following the release of an intelligence report that alleges senior officials in the Obama administration manipulated data related to Russian interference in the 2016 election.
The report, issued Friday by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, claims that key figures in the prior administration were involved in what it described as a “treasonous conspiracy.” Criminal referrals have reportedly been sent to the DOJ by current DNI Tulsi Gabbard.
Speaking from the Oval Office during a meeting with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., Trump made his position clear when asked who the DOJ should investigate. “It would be President Obama. He started it,” Trump said. “Biden was there. Comey was there. Clapper, Brennan all of them. They were in the room. Right here.”
Trump continued, “If you look at those documents, they have him stone cold. It wasn’t some scattered operation, it was centralized. The leader of the gang was President Obama Barack Hussein Obama.”
“This is treason,” he said. “He’s guilty, it’s not even a question.”
Trump also claimed that Gabbard told him more documents are forthcoming, and again labeled Obama the “ringleader.”
The recent report names former intelligence officials including James Clapper, John Brennan, and James Comey frequent critics of Trump during his presidency. Trump has long maintained that the Russia investigation, which probed whether his 2016 campaign colluded with Moscow, was a politically motivated “hoax.”
In March, Trump signed an executive order directing the release of all materials related to “Crossfire Hurricane,” the codename for the FBI’s 2016 investigation into Russian election interference.
On Tuesday, Trump was also asked about reports that Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche had reached out to attorneys representing Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted associate of Jeffrey Epstein, to schedule a meeting. Trump said he was unfamiliar with the situation but pivoted back to the intelligence report.
“The witch hunt that should matter is what Tulsi Gabbard exposed,” Trump said. “They tried to rig the 2016 election, and they kept it going into 2020. They got caught. There must be real consequences.”
Trump also referenced his 2016 opponent, saying he had “caught” Hillary Clinton but decided not to pursue charges because she was the wife of a former president. “I let her off the hook,” he said. “But now it’s time to go after people. Obama’s been caught directly. What they did in 2016 and 2020 was criminal criminal at the highest level.”