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A top US intelligence official has indicated that senior Obama-era figures, including Hillary Clinton and former intelligence chiefs, may face criminal prosecution for allegedly orchestrating a false narrative of Trump-Russia collusion during the 2016 presidential election.
Some shit you should know before you read: Last week, President Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that President Obama, along with then-Vice President Joe Biden and top intelligence officials including James Comey, James Clapper, and John Brennan, had engaged in what he called a “treasonous conspiracy” to undermine the 2016 election. Trump claimed Obama had been “caught directly,” alleging that the former president orchestrated an effort to manipulate intelligence and sabotage Trump’s presidency before it began. As justification, Trump pointed to documents recently declassified and released by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, which she claims reveal that intelligence officials deliberately suppressed an assessment in December 2016 stating that Russia had not impacted the election outcome. Gabbard alleged the report was pulled from the President’s Daily Brief “based on new guidance,” suggesting an attempt to conceal contrary intelligence and lay the groundwork for what she described as a multi-year “coup” against Trump. Gabbard has since submitted the materials to the Justice Department for potential criminal investigation.
What’s going on now: During an interview on Fox News Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo, CIA Director John Ratcliffe laid out allegations against former Obama administration officials, claiming they participated in what he called a coordinated “hoax” to falsely implicate Donald Trump in Russian election interference. Ratcliffe stated, “This was a Hillary Clinton campaign scheme,” alleging that the 2016 Democratic nominee had devised a plan to falsely accuse then-candidate Trump of colluding with Russia through the use of the now-discredited Steele dossier. He continued,“They conspired against President Trump, they conspired against the American people.”
Ratcliffe claimed that underlying intelligence, soon to be declassified, would demonstrate inconsistencies between public testimony given by figures like former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey and what the intelligence community actually knew at the time. He noted that due to these inconsistencies, he along with DNI Tulsi Gabbard made criminal referrals to the DOJ, which has now resulted in a “strike force” being formed by Attorney General Pam Bondi.
This comes as critics have been quick to call out the timing of the “Russiagate” investigation, noting it came just weeks after public outrage erupted over the Justice Department’s announcement that no further investigation was warranted into Jeffrey Epstein’s activities. That memo, which dismissed the existence of a so-called “client list,” sparked widespread backlash on both the left and right.
Former President Barack Obama’s office also responded directly to the accusations, dismissing them as a “ridiculous and weak attempt at distraction.”
