Tulsi Gabbard teased the release of “further documents tomorrow” after Barack Obama’s office firmly shut down her “ridiculous” claims that he conspired to subvert the 2016 election.
The director of national intelligence appeared on Newsmax Tuesday night to defend her allegations against Obama administration officials, after various analyses cast them as deeply misleading and thin. She dropped a report on Friday claiming to have uncovered a “treasonous conspiracy” by Obama-era officials to play up Russian election interference claims that “laid the groundwork for a years-long coup” against Trump.
Obama’s office issued a rare rebuke on Tuesday, dismissing the allegations as “ridiculous” and a weak attempt at distraction” as MAGA is roiled by the Jeffrey Epstein controversy.
“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,” Obama’s spokesperson Patrick Rodenbush said in the statement.
“These findings were affirmed in a 2020 report by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, led by then-Chairman Marco Rubio.”
Asked for her response on Newsmax, Gabbard doubled down.
“We will be releasing further documents tomorrow that will refute that statement,” she said.
“We will be pulling a whole host of statements that were made by the Obama administration, by Hillary Clinton, by senior Democrat officials, by their friends in the media, that state over and over again—after this January 2017 manufactured intelligence document was created—that repeat the narrative.”
“I’m looking at my notes here: New York Times says Russian hackers acted to aid Trump in the election,“ she continued. ”Obama’s CIA Director John Brennan says there is strong consensus among us to support the CIA claim Russian hackers aided Donald Trump’s election. Hillary Clinton said, ‘I would be president if not for the Russian hackers supporting Donald Trump.’”
She claimed those statements “refute” Obama’s statement.
However, they mostly align with it—and with the cautious findings of a 2020 bipartisan Senate report that concluded Russia influenced the election with the goal of helping Trump win, but did not conspire with him to do so.
Rubio, who is now Trump’s secretary of state, signed off on the report at the time.
Gabbard’s Friday announcement came at a convenient time for Trump, who is facing continued scrutiny over his administration’s decision not to release additional files related to the Jeffrey Epstein case. He swiftly pounced over the weekend, posting more than a dozen times about it on Truth Social and even sharing an AI-generated video of Obama being arrested and jailed.
Despite pledging more transparency, Trump has failed to follow through, antagonizing supporters who have long traded in conspiracy theories on the matter and suggested the government is in possession of a “client list” of powerful people to whom Epstein trafficked underage girls.
Trump has stoked those narratives with his wider claims of “deep state” Democratic elites working to undermine him.
Since the Epstein firestorm erupted on July 7, reports have unearthed new information and images highlighting Trump’s past friendship with the deceased sex offender, including an alleged vulgar birthday card and images of Epstein at Trump’s 1993 wedding to Marla Maples.
Trump on Tuesday praised Gabbard as the “hottest person in the room right now” during a meeting with Republican lawmakers.
“She has all the documents, she has everything that you need. You’ve found things that nobody thought we’d ever find. Very happy and very honored to have you with us,” he said.
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