Trump demands Obama's arrest following Tulsi Gabbard's 'coup' claims
She claimed the emails reveal a conspiracy by Obama to try and subvert Trump's win by using 'manufactured and politicized intelligence' to make it seem like bad actors may have influenced the result. 'Their goal was to subvert the will of the American people and enact what was essentially a years-long coup with the objective of trying to usurp the President from fulfilling the mandate bestowed upon him by the American people,' Gabbard said.
Her claims were reiterated by Trump who republished her interviews with Fox and several others about the issue on Truth Social. And on Sunday, he escalated things further by reposting an AI-generated TikTok video titled: 'No one is above the law'. The clip featured a series of Democratic politicians, including Obama, former president Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi, repeating the phrase 'no one is above the law'.
It then transitions to a digitally-altered video of Trump and Obama sitting together in the Oval Office. To the tune of YMCA by Village People, Obama is swept up by FBI agents, cuffed and led away. The clip ends with Obama donning an orange jumpsuit behind bars. Gabbard released an 114-page document she says shows the Obama administration was aware that there was no threat of Russia 'directly' manipulating the vote in 2016. She called for an investigatio n into and potential criminal prosecution of anyone who took part – which may include the ex-President and James Comey, the former FBI director. The documents revealed insider discussions among top Obama officials about Russia's much-debated role in the 2016 US elections.
Although many of the documents are highly redacted or completely blacked out, they show conversations among favorite Trump targets including former intel chief James Clapper, as officials debated how to describe Russian election activity. The documents found that there was 'no indication of a Russian threat to directly manipulate the actual vote count through cyber means'. But Gabbard says the documents show that Democrats chose to ignore that - or even promote the opposite narrative - to try and take down Trump.
'Their egregious abuse of power and blatant rejection of our Constitution threatens the very foundation and integrity of our democratic republic,' Gabbard in a blistering statement accompanying the document release. 'No matter how powerful, 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.'
Several of the documents put out by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) show officials found that Russia either wouldn't try or wouldn't be able to shift the outcome of a US vote. 'Russia probably is not trying to going to be able to? [influence] the election by using cyber means to manipulate computer-enabled election infrastructure,' reads one draft line by the then-deputy director of ODNI.
By December 9, following Trump's stunning win over Democrat Hillary Clinton , a document to top intelligence officials tasked them with creating an assessment 'per the President's request' about 'tools Moscow used and actions it took to influence the 2016 election' 'We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election,' according to a January 2017 report titled 'Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections.'
The report then mentioned Russian cyber operations against both political parties. Of the material Gabbard released, one new August 31, 2016 document by an official with their name blacked out states that the 'thrust of the analysis is that there is no indication of a Russian threat to directly manipulate the actual vote count through cyber means.' Democrats have responded by claiming that Gabbard's declassification is designed to deflect from the Department of Justice's decision to close its investigation into the handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case. In response Trump has instructed Attorney General Pam Bondi to disclose grand jury testimony files, pending court approval.
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