Tulsi Gabbard Alleges "Seditious Conspiracy" Regarding 2016 Russian Election Interference

WASHINGTON — Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has called for prosecution of members at the highest level of the Obama administration over claims that they conspired to misrepresent Russian interference in the 2016 election in what she described as a "coup" against Donald Trump.

Gabbard named President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, former DNI James Clapper, former FBI Director James Comey, and former CIA Director John Brennan as being of a cabal that orchestrated the so-called "Russiagate" scandal.

On Friday, Gabbard released alleged evidence of what she called a "treasonous conspiracy in 2016 committed by officials at the highest level of our government." Gabbard points to conclusions drawn in early 2017 that Russian President Vladimir Putin attempted to interfere in the 2016 presidential election against Clinton and in favor of Trump.

Gabbard's conclusions run contrary to four previous investigations, the reports of which total more than 2,500 pages. They include the Mueller Report; a 2019 Justice Department inspector general report, a bipartisan 2020 report by the Senate Intelligence Committee, and a 2023 report released by special counsel John Durham.

Then Senator Marco Rubio, Trump's current Secretary of State, served on the Intelligence Committee and signed off on reports that examined the Intelligence Community Assessment about Russia’s involvement in the 2016 campaign. Volume 4 of the report devoted nearly 160 pages to the development of the intelligence assessment that Gabbard attacked.

"The Committee found the ICA presents a coherent and well-constructed intelligence basis for the case of unprecedented Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election," the committee's report said. "On the analytic lines of the ICA, the Committee concludes that all [redacted] analytic lines are supported with all-source intelligence, although with varying substantiation. The Committee did not discover any significant analytic tradecraft issues in the preparation or final presentation of the ICA."

Much of Gabbard's scrutiny focuses on a lack of evidence that Russia attempted to hack voting machines during the general election while seeming to ignore the conclusion that the efforts took several forms, including hacking DNC servers, attempting to hack the RNC server, using information gleaned from WikiLeaks, and disseminating disinformation online and elsewhere to sew distrust among the American people.

The ICA stated clearly that the "DHS assesses that the types of systems Russian actors targeted or compromised were not involved in vote tallying."

In mid-2017, however, a National Security Agency report leaked by NSA contractor Reality Winner showed Russian military intelligence officials had hacked at least one voting software supplier and tried to break into more than 100 local election systems before the polls closed in 2016.

Gabbard's 11-page report can be viewed here. The video, released on her official YouTube channel, is embedded below. It is accompanied by bombastic reporting from FOX News at its opening, alleging that "Gabbard has proved what we knew all along."

President Trump said that the evidence is clear that "Barack Hussein Obama" is guilty of treason and sedition. Trump shared an AI-generated video of Obama being arrested on social media, with the caption that "no one is above the law." 

The claim that Obama's actions were an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the Trump presidency seemed ironic, given that Trump's rise to political prominence began with a years-long campaign that falsely asserted that Obama was not actually a U.S. citizen and therefore an illegitimate president. 

An Obama spokesperson put out the following response.

"Out of respect for the office of the presidency, our office does not normally dignify the constant nonsense and misinformation flowing out of this White House with a response. But these claims are outrageous enough to merit one. These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction."