Tulsi Gabbard says ‘further documents' to be released today proving ‘Obama coup'
Gabbard announced on Friday that she was referring Obama administration officials – including ex-FBI director James Comey, ex-CIA director John Brennan, and her own predecessor James Clapper – to the Justice Department over their roles in the alleged plot to undermine Trump's victory over Hillary Clinton.
She subsequently accused the Democrat of orchestrating a 'yearslong coup' against Trump during an interview with Maria Bartiromo on Fox News 's Sunday Morning Futures.
Central to her claim is a National Security Council (NSC) meeting held on December 9, 2016, at which, she alleges, the 44th president ordered a new report be compiled detailing 'the tools Moscow used and actions it took to influence the 2016 election' in the Republican's favor, overruling an earlier, less certain assessment.
The report in question was duly published in January 2017.
A spokesperson for Obama said on Tuesday: '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.
'These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction. 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.
'These findings were affirmed in a 2020 report by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee led by then-chairman [and now U.S. Secretary of State] Marco Rubio.'
Speaking to Newsmax last night, Gabbard was confronted with Obama's rebuttal by host Rob Schmitt and responded: 'We will be releasing further documents tomorrow that will refute that statement.
'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.'
Asked what quotes she had gathered, she answered: '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.'
'There is a vast body of evidence and intelligence that debunks and refutes this statement you've just read and others coming from some of the Democrat leaders in Congress today.'
Gabbard also claimed that new whistleblowers had come forward since her initial announcement and added: 'The legal path forward will be up to the Department of Justice to determine. However, I will say how essential it is as an American that we hold people accountable, no matter how powerful they are, no matter what position they have held.
'It is essential that for the future of our nation and our democratic republic, that accountability must occur.'
In a second interview with Lara Trump, the president's daughter-in-law, again on Fox, Gabbard once more refuted Obama's denial and said it was he, not her, that was engaged in 'the art of deflection.'
She insisted that, in late 2016, 'the intelligence community had one assessment, that Russia did not have the intent or capability to try to impact the outcome of the U.S. election' but that verdict abruptly changed after the NSC meeting at which Clapper was ordered to issue a new version detailing 'how, not if' Moscow had meddled.
Gabbard also accused Obama's intelligence officials of using 'already discredited information like the Steele dossier' to stand up their argument.
Trump himself has latched onto her claims, posting about them multiple times over the weekend on social media, on one occasion circulating an AI TikTok meme imagining Obama being arrested in the Oval Office and sent to jail.
However, his critics have, like Obama, argued that the whole story is just an attempt to distract from the ongoing furore over his administration's failure to release its files on Jeffrey Epstein.
On Tuesday's instalment of MSNBC's Morning Joe, host Joe Scarborough presented a 14-point 'laundry list' of subjects raised in the last two weeks to distract from the Epstein case, with the Obama conspiracy appearing alongside such issues as expat comedian Rosie O'Donnell's citizenship status and the potential renaming of the Washington Commanders and Cleveland Guardians.
Connecticut Democratic Rep. Jim Himes told the same network yesterday: 'When people like Tulsi Gabbard and Donald Trump accuse an ex-president of a capital crime that is punishable by death, who is going to die? Who is going to die because they've decided that they need a distraction away from the Epstein calamity.'
'Gabbard nonsense' was cooked up 'purely as a distraction from Epstein,' an opinion shared by ex-Republican congressman Denver Riggleman.
Democratic National Committee delegate Kaivan Shroff went further, lashing out at the intelligence chief on Newsmax by saying that Gabbard 'has built her career as a stooge for dictators and that is why Donald Trump picked her… [The president] is embroiled in so many scandals dividing his base that he wants to distract with this.'
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