Obama Calls Trump's Treason Accusation a ‘Weak Attempt at Distraction'
'I wish her well,' Donald Trump famously said in 2020 of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein's partner Ghislaine Maxwell. When journalist Jonathan Swan prodded the President that Maxwell was in jail on charges of sex trafficking, Trump even responded with surprising deference to the criminal justice process: 'I'd wish you well. I'd wish a lot of people well. Good luck. Let them prove somebody was guilty.'
But he isn't taking the same tone now with former President Barack Obama. 'He's guilty. It's not a question,' Trump said Tuesday. 'This was treason.'
Trump's denunciation of his predecessor came as he has attempted to deflect scrutiny, including from many of his own former supporters, over his relationship with Epstein and his Administration's attempt earlier this month to close the case despite his allies fanning conspiracy theories that past governments had suppressed evidence incriminating powerful elites and previously vowing to make such evidence public.
At the White House, Trump dismissed the unabating controversy surrounding Epstein and Maxwell as a 'witch hunt,' telling reporters that 'the witch hunt that you should be talking about is that they caught President Obama absolutely cold.'
'They tried to rig the election, and they got caught, and there should be very severe consequences for that,' Trump said, referring to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard's recent declassification of Russia-probe-related documents that she claimed amounted to a 'treasonous conspiracy' by the Obama Administration to subvert Trump's 2016 election victory and subsequent presidency.
Read More: Trump Envisions Jailing Obama as Tulsi Gabbard Threatens Prosecutions
'This is like proof, irrefutable proof, that Obama was sidacious [sic], that Obama was trying to lead a coup,' Trump asserted, apparently mispronouncing seditious. 'This is the biggest scandal in the history of our country.'
Trump rattled off a list of alleged co-conspirators—former Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic nominee for President Hillary Clinton, former Vice President and President Joe Biden, former FBI Director James Comey, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper—but insisted that 'the leader of the gang was President Obama.'
'It's time to go after people,' Trump said. 'What they did in 2016 and in 2020 is very criminal. It's criminal at the highest level. So that's really the things that you should be talking about.'
Obama issues rare rebuke
Since leaving office, Obama has largely refrained from commenting on the goings-on of his successors. But on Tuesday, he issued a rare response via a spokesperson to Trump's accusations.
'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,' Patrick Rodenbush said in a statement. 'But these claims are outrageous enough to merit one. These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction.'
The statement added that Gabbard's so-called evidence does not undercut 'the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes.' It noted that 'these findings were affirmed in a 2020 report by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, led by then-Chairman Marco Rubio.'
Democrats have largely echoed Obama's response, accusing Trump and his allies of attempting to distract from Epstein. 'Another day, another wave of absurd lies and distractions from Donald Trump,' Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland posted on X. 'It's clear he wants us talking about *anything* other than his refusal to release the Epstein files…or rising prices. It's not going to work.'
'Nothing has made me more confident that Trump committed crimes with Jeffrey Epstein and is now covering them up than this insane administration pivot to calling Obama seditious and guilty of treason,' posted former Obama staffer turned pundit Tommy Vietor.
On Fox News, Gabbard accused Obama and congressional Democrats of 'trying to deflect away from what actually happened.' Gabbard has said that more evidence will be produced shortly, with Trump telling reporters earlier that she told him there were 'thousands of additional documents coming.'
Can Obama really be tried for treason?
Former deputy assistant attorney general Elliot Williams told CNN, where he is a legal analyst, that it's very unlikely that Obama will even be charged with, let alone convicted of, any crime related to Gabbard's claims. 'There is not a serious case here for treason or sedition or whatever else,' Williams said.
The U.S. Constitution sets a specific definition for treason, summarized by Cornell Law School's Legal Information Institute as 'the betrayal of one's own country by attempting to overthrow the government through waging war against the State or materially aiding its enemies.' It is punishable by imprisonment or even death.
Gabbard's suggestion that Obama betrayed the U.S. government by directing a supposedly misleading intelligence assessment is 'just silly,' said Williams. 'Intelligence assessments are sometimes ambiguous. There are different opinions that can be made about them, but merely disagreeing with one or the findings of one, or what's drawn from one, is not treason,' he said. 'Now, can it be a hassle and a pain in the ass to the person who's investigated, who's got to hire a lawyer and go through all the motions? Sure. But this is not an investigation to be grounded in any reality.'
Beyond that, there's also the issue of presidential immunity. In a ruling favorable to Trump last year, the Supreme Court established a broad framework that former Presidents enjoy 'absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority' and 'at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts.'
'Before Trump v. US, people could ask pesky questions like, 'If President Obama committed so many crimes, why hasn't the DOJ indicted him?' But Presidential immunity makes evidence of wrongdoing (or lack thereof in Obama's case) irrelevant,' Milan Markovic, a law professor at Texas A&M University, posted on Bluesky. Posted Graham Steele, former assistant secretary for financial institutions at the Treasury Department and a fellow at the Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford Law School: 'One of SCOTUS's rationales for the Trump immunity decision was that it would protect former presidents of *both parties* from political prosecutions. And yet, this administration is openly talking about indicting a former Democratic president on (literally and figuratively) trumped-up charges.'
But when conservative commentator Benny Johnson asked rightwing lawyer Mike Davis, who has been dubbed 'Trump's chief legal defender,' about presidential immunity as well as the statute of limitations, which for most federal crimes is five years, Davis rejected those potential obstacles to prosecuting Obama.
'He might be able to claim presidential immunity for his actions while he was the President of the United States, and they'll have to litigate that,' Davis said. 'But I'll tell you this, it's an ongoing criminal conspiracy, and presidential immunity covers his actions while he's the President of the United States. They don't cover his actions when he's the former President of the United States and when he's participating in the cover-up of this conspiracy.'
'Justice is coming,' Davis warned Democrats. 'I don't think we'll put you in Mike Davis' gulag—the viceroy's gulag, as we joke, as we troll—but justice is definitely coming, and I think the Bureau of Prisons will have plenty of space for these people.'
Contact us at letters@time.com.
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