Gabbard Claims Obama Led False Russiagate Narrative, DOJ to Determine Criminal Consequences

In a bombshell White House press briefing that sent shockwaves through Washington, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard directly accused former President Barack Obama of orchestrating a “contrived narrative” that falsely claimed Russia interfered in the 2016 election to support Donald Trump.

Gabbard’s claims come amid a sweeping declassification of intelligence documents that she says expose unprecedented levels of political manipulation within the highest ranks of the U.S. intelligence community during the Obama administration.

“There is irrefutable evidence that details how President Obama and his national security team directed the creation of an intelligence community assessment that they knew was false,” Gabbard told reporters.

“They knew it would promote this contrived narrative that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help President Trump win, selling it to the American people as though it were true. It wasn’t.”

Gabbard’s appearance followed the release of dozens of declassified documents that challenge the official account surrounding Russia’s alleged involvement in the 2016 election.

The documents, many previously shielded from public view, paint a troubling picture of politicized intelligence and internal dissent, including claims that no direct evidence ever existed to support the assertion that Vladimir Putin personally sought to tip the election in Trump’s favor.

“All of these documents, from multiple agencies, all come back to and confirm the same report,” Gabbard said. “There was a gross politicization and manipulation of intelligence by the Obama administration intended to delegitimize President Trump even before he was inaugurated—ultimately usurping the will of the American people.”

While critics have long accused the Obama administration of overstepping boundaries in its investigations of Trump’s campaign, Gabbard’s statements represent the most direct and formal accusation to date by a sitting official at the highest level of U.S. intelligence.

Her office, she said, has already referred the declassified materials to both the Department of Justice and the FBI for formal evaluation.

“We have referred and will continue to refer all of these documents to the Department of Justice and the FBI, to investigate the criminal implications of this,” Gabbard confirmed.

“The evidence that we have found, and that we have released, directly point to President Obama leading the manufacturing of this intelligence assessment. There are multiple pieces of evidence and intelligence that confirm that fact.”

Among the names implicated in the declassified documents are several top officials from the Obama-era national security apparatus, including former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, National Security Advisor Susan Rice, Secretary of State John Kerry, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe.

While the documents do not provide a smoking gun that proves criminal intent, they suggest a pattern of unusual directives and coordinated messaging, which Gabbard says were intentionally designed to cast doubt on the legitimacy of Trump’s election.

The most stunning claim comes from a 2020 report from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, now made public, which alleges that intelligence agencies may have relied on “potentially biased” or “implausible” intelligence to support the theory that Putin had favored Trump—often at the “unusual” orders of President Obama himself.

Predictably, the backlash was immediate. Patrick Rodenbush, a spokesperson for former President Obama, issued a rare statement responding directly to the claims.

“These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction,” Rodenbush said. “Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes.”

Rodenbush continued, “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.”

Despite the dismissals from Obama’s camp, Gabbard and her team appear undeterred. Her approach has been methodical and document-driven, placing an emphasis on transparency and the public’s right to know.

Her team has already released more than 100 declassified intelligence documents that span both pre- and post-election analysis conducted by U.S. intelligence agencies.

“For months preceding the 2016 election, the Intelligence Community shared a consensus view: Russia lacked the intent and capability to hack U.S. elections,” Gabbard stated earlier this month. “But weeks after President Trump’s historic 2016 victory defeating Hillary Clinton, everything changed.”

That change, she alleges, came not from any new intelligence but from a coordinated political effort to undercut the president-elect. The resulting assessment, which alleged Russian election meddling, became the foundation for years of investigations, media narratives, and political distrust that culminated in a sprawling special counsel probe and the eventual impeachment of Donald Trump.

Gabbard’s accusations are bolstered by President Trump himself, who on Tuesday doubled down on his belief that Barack Obama was the “ringleader” of the efforts to frame his campaign for collusion.

Trump reposted a video on Truth Social depicting Obama being arrested in the Oval Office—a dramatic and AI-generated image that sparked both support and condemnation across the political spectrum.

As for whether the Department of Justice will pursue charges or a formal investigation into the allegations, the agency has remained silent. Fox News Digital reached out for comment but did not receive a response from either the DOJ or the FBI.

However, legal experts note that if criminal intent can be established—specifically, that intelligence was knowingly manipulated to deceive Congress or the public—then the case could escalate into an unprecedented confrontation between a sitting administration and a former one.

“This would be uncharted territory,” said one former DOJ official. “There has never been a situation where a former president and his entire national security team are formally investigated for engineering false intelligence assessments for political gain. The legal and constitutional implications would be seismic.”

Yet, not everyone is convinced by Gabbard’s assertions. Critics argue that while the intelligence community may have faced pressure to respond to Russian influence operations, the findings were consistent with public events—such as the hacking and leaking of Democratic National Committee emails and a well-documented Russian disinformation campaign.

They also point to the bipartisan 2020 Senate Intelligence Committee report, led by then-Chairman Marco Rubio, which concluded that while there was no evidence of vote tampering or collusion by the Trump campaign, there was irrefutable evidence of Russian efforts to influence public perception and confidence in the U.S. electoral process.

“The Committee found that the Russian government engaged in an aggressive, multi-faceted effort to influence, or attempt to influence, the outcome of the 2016 presidential election,” Rubio wrote.

“WikiLeaks actively sought, and played, a key role in the Russian influence campaign and very likely knew it was assisting a Russian intelligence influence effort.”

Still, the report’s findings may not fully contradict Gabbard’s claim—she has never denied that Russia engaged in influence campaigns but rather disputes that those efforts were orchestrated to help Trump or were known to have that intent by U.S. intelligence officials.

For Gabbard, the mission remains clear. “The American people deserve the truth,” she declared. “We are pursuing this not out of vengeance, but out of duty. If our intelligence institutions can be weaponized for political purposes, that threatens the very foundation of our republic.”

Her comments have already set off a wave of debate inside Washington and beyond, as lawmakers, journalists, and citizens now face the possibility that one of the most consequential political narratives of the past decade may have been rooted in deception.

Whether the Department of Justice acts on the evidence remains to be seen, but one thing is certain: the curtain has been pulled back, and the questions that follow are not going away.