Republicans stop short of endorsing Trump's call to arrest Obama officials

The Hill

28-07-2025

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard's document releases about the Obama administration's review of the 2016 election are leading President Trump to call for prosecution of former officials, including his predecessor.
But many Republicans in Congress aren't ready to go quite that far.
While Trump's GOP supporters in Congress have united in expressing outrage, they have varying ideas of what accountability looks like.
And Democrats say the Trump administration is completely misrepresenting the facts while abusing intelligence and the justice system. They also see it as a bid to distract from growing pressure on the White House to release more information about deceased financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The files reveal little new information about Russia's much-studied efforts to influence the 2016 election, but Republicans have nonetheless claimed the intelligence reviews were designed to cast doubt on Trump's victory. The documents do not undercut a central conclusion: that Russia lunched a massive campaign with the hopes of influencing the contest.
House GOP leaders are vowing Congress will investigate, but are stopping short of calling for prosecutions, as Trump has, or proposing any tangible consequences for those named in the newly released documents.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) called Gabbard's disclosures 'pretty earth-shattering.'
But Scalise declined to call for arrests or prosecutions.
'There needs to be accountability,' Scalise said. 'But now our committees are going to go to work. There's a lot of work to do to find out more …. You follow the evidence wherever it leads, and then if somebody broke laws, you take action. We're at the beginning stages of this. So let's find out where it leads.'
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said on Fox Business Network last week that 'it would appear that laws have been broken by any number of people,' also alluding to congressional action.
'We will use every tool within our arsenal to bring about accountability here. And if we have to create and pioneer new tools, we'll do that as well,' Johnson said.
The reaction showcases yet another fracture between congressional Republicans who are normally in lockstep behind Trump — though a much smaller one than the split over files relating to Epstein, which many Republicans have continued to seek despite Trump's calling interest in the matter a 'hoax.'
If the administration did pursue charges against Obama, it would likely be hamstrung as a result of Trump's own legal battles.
The Supreme Court in 2024 sided with Trump in determining that former presidents retain immunity from criminal prosecution even after they leave office for actions within the scope of their executive power.
Further dissection of the limits of that immunity went unexplored when the underlying case was dismissed after Trump's reelection.
But Democrats argue the biggest roadblock would be that the GOP claims don't align with the facts — and some are eager for the courts to tell Republicans just that.
'Tulsi Gabbard has leveled some of the most serious charges ever leveled against an American at a former president. Bring charges. Bring charges,' said Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.
'And the reason I want her to bring charges is that there is not a court in the United States that will do anything other than to laugh hysterically over the bulls— that Tulsi Gabbard is peddling right now.'
'They're not dumping documents. They're making up lies,' Himes added.
Gabbard earlier this month released a report she said unearths a 'treasonous conspiracy' against Trump when it comes to the 'Russia hoax.'
In fact, what she released shows intelligence leaders discussing how the Russians were never able to alter vote tabulations — something that was never in dispute and aligns with what Obama officials said publicly at the time.
What intelligence did find, and which several reviews have since backed, was that Russia embarked on a massive social media campaign in the hopes of sowing division in the U.S.
Last week, Gabbard released another report, this time a classified review led by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee. That report cast doubt on whether Russian President Vladimir Putin aimed to aid Trump as opposed to sowing discord within the U.S. (In the process, she infuriated Democrats, who argued she exposed sources and methods for gathering intelligence.)
However, a bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report, a panel led at the time by now-Secretary of State Marco Rubio, blacked the conclusion Russia favored Trump.
'Moscow's intent was to harm the Clinton Campaign, tarnish an expected Clinton presidential administration, help the Trump Campaign after Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee, and undermine the U.S. democratic process,' that report concluded.
Nonetheless, Trump this week said the new files 'have [Obama] stone-cold,' saying he needs to be investigated.
'They tried to rig the election, and they got caught. And there should be very severe consequences for that,' Trump told reporters in the Oval Office last week.
On his website Truth Social, Trump posted what appeared to be an AI-generated meme of Obama administration officials — including the former president himself — posing for mug shots in orange jumpsuits. And he shared an AI-generated video of Obama being handcuffed and arrested.
Obama's team issued a rare public statement, calling the claims an effort at distraction.
'Our office does not normally dignify the constant nonsense and misinformation flowing out of this White House with a response,' an Obama spokesperson said. 'But these claims are outrageous enough to merit one. These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction.'
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) signaled that she would like to see arrests in light of the releases from Gabbard.
'If they don't arrest people, this systemic corruption will just continue,' Luna told The Blaze.
In the upper chamber, meanwhile, Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) last week called for a special counsel to be appointed, saying there must be 'an immediate investigation of what we believe to be an unprecedented and clear abuse of power by a U.S. presidential administration.'
Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), who is normally a staunch supporter of Trump, said that calls for indictments over Gabbard's releases are 'way too premature.'
'Let the facts determine what happens,' Norman said.