U.S. President Donald Trump has reignited controversy by accusing his predecessor, Barack Obama, of “treason” and calling for his prosecution following a new report alleging misconduct by Obama-era officials in handling intelligence related to Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Trump made the explosive comments on Tuesday during a press briefing at the White House alongside visiting Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos.
The former president was responding to a report released last Friday by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, which accuses Obama administration officials of manufacturing intelligence to justify what Gabbard termed “a years-long coup” against Trump.
Gabbard’s report claims that officials under Obama manipulated intelligence on Russia’s election interference to discredit Trump’s 2016 victory.
The DNI has since submitted criminal referrals to the Department of Justice, prompting Trump to say prosecution should begin with Obama himself.
“Based on what I read — and I read pretty much what you read — it would be President Obama. He started it,” Trump declared, doubling down on the claim that the former president led a “treasonous conspiracy” against him.
He went further to label Obama the “leader of the gang,” while also naming then-Vice President Joe Biden, ex-FBI Director James Comey, former CIA Director John Brennan, and former DNI Director James Clapper as co-conspirators.
Trump’s accusations come just a day after he faced backlash for sharing an AI-generated video depicting Obama’s fictional arrest, which critics labeled as inflammatory and misleading.
Despite these claims, multiple independent investigations conducted between 2019 and 2023 — including those by the FBI, Department of Justice Inspector General, and the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee — concluded that Russia did, in fact, interfere in the 2016 U.S. election with the intent to benefit Trump’s campaign.
The 2020 Senate report, chaired by then-Republican Senator Marco Rubio, now Trump’s secretary of state, stated that Trump’s team “sought to maximize the impact” of Russian-leaked Democratic emails.
“The Russian intelligence services’ assault on the integrity of the 2016 U.S. electoral process, and Trump and his associates’ participation in and enabling of this Russian activity, represents one of the single most grave counterintelligence threats to American national
