Remember the “Russia Collusion” allegations that dogged Donald Trump throughout his first term as president, accusations he secretly worked with Moscow to hijack the 2016 election?
After years of Trump-Russia collusion probes, that narrative collapsed. Yet the hoax deceived millions, fueled the Mueller and Durham investigations, helped drive two impeachment pushes against Trump, and burned through millions of taxpayer dollars.
No one was ever held accountable for the tightly orchestrated operation that produced falsified documents, lies to congress, arrests and character hit jobs, all in order to delegitimize President Trump’s 2016 election victory.
Now, newly released intelligence files—over 100 documents made public by Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard—trace the conspiracy back to the Obama White House, and to former President Obama himself, reported Fox News.
The bombshell revelations, if true, lay bare a trail of shocking corruption.
“Americans will finally learn the truth about how in 2016, intelligence was politicized and weaponized by the most powerful people in the Obama Administration, to lay the groundwork for what was essentially a years-long coup against President Trump,” Gabbard said in an interview with the news outlet.
“Over 100 documents that we just released detail and provide evidence of how this treasonous conspiracy was directed by President Obama just weeks before he was due to leave office, after President Trump had already been elected,” Gabbard elaborated.
“The issue I am raising is not a Democrat or Republican issue. This is an issue that has to do with the integrity of our democratic republic. It is one that concerns every American,” the Director of National Intelligence said.
Why Didn’t Mueller and Durham Connect the Dots?
Gabbard said she was baffled by how special counsels run by Robert Mueller and John Durham missed evidence of what she alleged was a long-running coup against President Trump.
“I really cannot fathom it,” Gabbard told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” about why Durham and Mueller didn’t highlight the evidence her team found. “There is no rational or logical explanation for why they failed.”
“The only logical conclusion that I can draw in this … is that there was direct intent to cover up the truth about what occurred and who was responsible, and the broad network of how this seditious conspiracy was concocted. And who exactly was responsible for carrying it out.”
The DNI refrained from explicitly accusing either Durham or Mueller of having the “intent to cover up the truth.”
The Mueller probe found no evidence of Trump-Russia collusion but failed to examine the origins of the allegations, while the Durham investigation blasted the FBI for acting as a propaganda arm of the Democratic Party and the Obama administration.
Gabbard noted that her office was sending the evidence her team had unearthed about the Obama administration’s “treasonous coup” to the Justice Department “for possible criminal referrals, and to deliver the accountability that President Trump, his family, and the American people deserve.”
‘There Must Be Indictments’
Gabbard stressed that Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel will have to gather the evidence and decide whether to press charges.
Still, she vowed to do “all that I can” to ensure accountability and argued in favor of prosecuting former intelligence officials involved.
“There must be indictments, no matter how powerful they were at that time,” Gabbard told Fox News. “Every person involved in this conspiracy must be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, to ensure nothing like this ever happens again.”
The DNI, who oversees coordination between 18 intelligence agencies, hinted that more information will be coming next week and that some whistleblowers are stepping forward because they are “disgusted by what happened.”
She said they witnessed how their superiors used politicized intelligence as the basis for countless smears seeking to delegitimize President Trump’s victory, and to justify the years-long Mueller investigation.
Corrupted intelligence “was used to push two Congressional impeachments; high level officials being investigated, arrested, and thrown in jail; heightened US-Russia tensions, and more,” Gabbard’s office said. “We will soon be releasing more detailed information about how this took place, and the extent to which this information was meant to be hidden.”
Breaking Down The Evidence
In her appearance on the Fox News Channel, Gabbard described the steps allegedly taken by the Obama administration in “manufacturing evidence” to support the false accusation of a Russia-Trump collusion. It began, she said, with the distortion of authentic intelligence reports in late 2016.
Those reports, intended as part of a daily intelligence briefing to President Obama, confirmed that Russia had not meaningfully interfered in the presidential election.
“Foreign adversaries did not use cyberattacks on election infrastructure to alter the U.S. Presidential election outcome,” then-DNI Director James Clapper’s office wrote. In another memo, he repeated this assessment, stating, “We have no evidence of cyber manipulation of election infrastructure intended to alter results.”
These assessments were included by national security analysts in a brief prepared for President Obama on December 8th 2016, with the document concluding, “We assess that Russian actors did not impact recent U.S. election results by conducting malicious cyber activities.”
But the above reports, instead of being made official, were put on hold and replaced with a drastically altered assessment a short time later. Senior Obama officials then pushed the very opposite message; that Russia did in fact carry out significant election interference.
Incriminating Timeline
Gabbard laid out an incriminating timeline that illustrated the abrupt reversal in the intelligence assessment. That timeline included screen excerpts from relevant documents that showed the original findings of security analysts, when multiple teams investigated Russian election interference and found there wasn’t any of consequence.
One screenshot from a senior security analyst read: “We agree: Russia probably is not (and will not be) trying to influence the election by using cyber means to manipulate computer-enabled election infrastructure.”
As we now know, this report and others like it never saw the light of day.
Instead, after a Dec. 9 meeting with Obama, Klapper was given new orders: to produce a report that essentially denied the truth of the original. This one would examine “the tools” Moscow had used to interfere with the presidential election.
In compliance with this directive, the declassified documents show, DNI Clapper began spearheading a doctored up intelligence report which he unveiled in full on January 6th, 2017 —two weeks before Trump took the oath.
The new report was “an Obama-directed assessment,” DNI Gabbard explained. “It laid the groundwork for a years-long coup intended to subvert President Trump’s entire presidency. It claimed the Russians orchestrated hackings of Democratic National Committee emails, and intervened in the presidential contest to enhance Trump’s chances of victory.
This new assessment was built in part on the earlier “Steele Dossier” framing Donald Trump as a Russian asset—which would make him guilty of treasonous conduct. The Dossier was later exposed as a lurid piece of fiction authored by a former British spy, commissioned by Hilary Clinton’s election campaign.
From Falsified Intel to Front‑Page Headlines
Thus began the notorious “Russia election interference” narrative used to undermine Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory.
The scandal grew as members of the intelligence community began to issue calculated leaks of falsified information to the Washington Post, NBC and other media outlets, all quoting “anonymous” intelligence officials.
Washington Post reported, “This presidential campaign marks the first time Russia has attempted through cyber means to interfere in, if not actively influence, the outcome of an election, intelligence officials said.”
NBC chimed in with, “U.S. intelligence officials now believe with a high level of confidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin became personally involved in the covert Russian campaign to interfere in the U.S. presidential election, senior U.S. intelligence officials told NBC News.”
Other news outlets reported that Obama was expressing public concerns about the hacking “affecting the vote counting process.”
According to DNI Gabbard, this web of “leaked lies” set the stage for the FBI to begin its secret surveillance of President Trump after he won the election against Hilary Clinton, amid mounting rumors that he had colluded with Moscow to manipulate the vote.
Many of us are familiar with the outrageous debacle that followed: cries of election interference; calls for impeachment, and then a second impeachment, plus one investigation after another.
The impeachments were purportedly about different issues—Trump’s supposed “collusion” with Ukraine and the Jan. 6 Capitol “riot.” But they took their fuel from the toxic climate of “anti-Trumpism” that infected many parts of the country.
Gabbard Tore the Lid Off the Evidence
Tulsi Gabbard’s public disclosures as Director of National Intelligence are unprecedented in nearly every dimension of American governance, experts say.
Never before has a sitting DNI directly accused former top intelligence officials—including her predecessors—of orchestrating a domestic disinformation campaign to subvert an incoming president.
Experts note Gabbard is the first Director of National Intelligence to publicly accuse a former president and former intelligence leaders of a treasonous conspiracy, with reams of evidence to back up her allegations.
Rather than issue anonymous leaks or await a closed-door investigation, Gabbard tore the lid off evidence from a pending investigation, complete with official documents, internal communications, and a direct handoff to the Department of Justice.
She did not wait for subpoenas, and refused to sit out the usual foot-dragging of Congressional hearings and wrangling while the public is guaranteed to lose all interest in the matter.
Gabbard also took the unprecedented step of declassifying a stack of evidence unearthed from inside the intelligence community’s secretive archives. The link is now available on the DNI’s website, marked “Approved for release by the DNI on 17 July 2025.”
The lightly redacted documents are thoroughly sourced, with evidence, frozen in time, of what appears to be coordinated manipulation of intelligence leading up to and following the 2016 election, during Obama’s last weeks in office.
Now that these disclosures have gone viral, the investigation is not likely to be buried the way many probes are allowed to lapse and fall off the public radar, experts surmise.
A number of Trump allies have supported Gabbard’s call for prosecutions.
“These tyrants are finally being called out for what they’ve done,” Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, posted online. “The Russia-gate hoax was a far more effective attack on our republic and our elections than any foreign adversary could have managed. Those who sold this lie to the American people became the very same villains they invented,” he added from his official account.
“The corruption runs deep in the Swamp. Thank goodness we have a President and administration committed to truth and accountability,” posted Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas.
“EVERYONE involved must be held to account,” Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz. posted. “This is only the beginning. Much more will be revealed,” Rep. Greg Steube R- Fla., commented.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt boosted Gabbard’s posts on X, writing, “Every American should read this.”
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said in a statement that Gabbard “exposed the startling depths of a seditious coup against the Republic. The forces behind this coup have done and will do anything to protect their grasp on illegitimate power. Do not underestimate their capabilities or depravities. But WE are stronger.”
Moscow’s Meddling Was Insignificant; Obama Inflated It
Democrats have criticized Gabbard’s report on the targeting of Trump by the Obama White House as misleading and politically motivated.
Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, accused her of “weaponizing her position to amplify the president’s election conspiracy theories.”
Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, called the report “baseless” and an attempt to rehash “decade-old false claims about the Obama Administration.”
“Few episodes in our nation’s history have been investigated as thoroughly as the Intelligence Community’s warning in 2016 that Russia was interfering in the election,” Himes said in a statement.
In one sense, Himes in correct. The bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee investigation that Himes referred to later found that while Trump did not collude with the Russians, Moscow was by no means blameless.
The chairman of the Intel Committee at the time — then-Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who now serves as Secretary of State under Trump —reinforced this finding. “The committee found absolutely no evidence that then-candidate Donald Trump or his campaign colluded with the Russian government to meddle in the 2016 election,” he said in a statement.
“What the committee did find, however, is very troubling,” the statement continued. “We found irrefutable evidence of Russian meddling. Russian government-affiliated actors most likely compromised an Illinois voter registration database and unsuccessfully attempted the same in other states.”
In the broader picture, Moscow’s meddling was insignificant; it was the fabricated intelligence from Obama’s security team that inflated its importance. The blitz of declassified documents released by Gabbard indicates that this was done purely to justify a campaign to paint Trump as colluding with the Kremlin to hijack the election.
At the end of the day, writes National Review, “the real collusion was between the Clinton campaign and Obama administration officials. Their common goal was to put the government’s law enforcement and intelligence apparatus in the service of Democratic Party objectives.”
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Can Obama Be Prosecuted?
Former President Obama is now “squarely” in the crosshairs of the Russia-gate scam, investigative journalist Matt Taibbi wrote in Racket News, shortly after DNI Tulsi Gabbard’s office unleashed a blitz of documents that laid out the origins of the Trump-Russia collusion narrative.
Two years ago, Americans would have shrugged at the mention of Obama’s name in connection with a conspiracy to undermine a presidential election. Former presidents are never prosecuted, was once the rule. But six Trump prosecutions later, there is now a well-established precedent.
A Supreme Court ruling in one of those cases also set guidelines and a hypothetical framework for a potential prosecution of a U.S. president. The ruling said presidents have no immunity for “unofficial acts,” and presidents can be prosecuted once out of office, under the right circumstances.
“The Obama-era intelligence manipulation operation that Gabbard has disclosed wasn’t part of a war plan or a foreign policy initiative,” attorney and columnist Jeff Childers pointed out. “It was a domestic political insurgency— engineered after the election to discredit the incoming administration. In order to secure authorization to eavesdrop on Trump’s campaign, team Obama had to lie to FISA about Trump’s purported misdeeds.”
A Breitbart News article singled out the act of eavesdropping on Trump’s campaign as one of the Obama administration’s most illicit tactics in its campaign to discredit Trump. Officials continued monitoring the Trump team even when no evidence of wrongdoing was found; they then relaxed the NSA rules to allow evidence to be shared widely within the government.
This virtually ensured that the information, including the conversations of private citizens, would be leaked to the media, the article said.
When President Trump claimed that Obama had his “wires tapped,” the mainstream media mocked him for spouting a “conspiracy theory.”
CNN ran a sneering headline, “Birth of a conspiracy theory: How Trump’s wiretap claim got started.” (The story has since apparently been pulled from CNN’s website, reported Breitbart News.)
The Washington Post said that Trump was “citing no evidence to support his explosive allegation.”
But as so many recent “conspiracy theories” have been validated, this one too, turned out to be true. It was vindicated later in March 2017 by then-Rep. Devin Nunes, R-CA, and again by CNN in September 2017, when the network admitted — despite its early denials — that the Trump campaign had been “wiretapped.”
The Durham report of May 2023 also confirmed that the Obama administration had eavesdropped on the Trump campaign.
Gabbard’s new revelations add further material for investigation, and suggest the preparations to target Trump began far earlier than previously reported. The documents she released strongly suggest Obama personally green‑lit the operation aimed at reversing—or at least delegitimizing—Trump’s election win.
One of the most shocking revelations from Gabbard is that, while many believed Hillary Clinton was the driving force behind the schemes against Trump, few imagined that Obama—operating from the shadows—may have spent his final weeks in office orchestrating the operation to bring Trump down.
