Latest news with #BarackObama
NZ Herald
18 minutes ago
- Politics
- NZ Herald
US President's claim follows a new Justice Department report on Russian election interference
Former US President Barack Obama. Photo / Jamie Kelter Davis, the New York Times Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech. US President's claim follows a new Justice Department report on Russian election interference Former US President Barack Obama. Photo / Jamie Kelter Davis, the New York Times United States President Donald Trump today accused his predecessor President Barack Obama of 'treason' and called for his prosecution over a report alleging that officials in the Democrat's Administration had manipulated information on Russia's interference in the 2016 election. Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard has sent criminal referrals to the Justice Department related to a report published last week that asserted the Obama officials had been part of a 'treasonous conspiracy'. Gabbard claimed Obama and his team had manufactured intelligence regarding Russian election interference to 'lay the groundwork for what was essentially a years-long coup against President Trump'. Her report flies in the face of evidence amassed in four separate criminal, counterintelligence and watchdog probes issued between 2019 and 2023 - all of which concluded that Russia did intervene on Trump's behalf in the 2016 election. The Republican leader was asked whom the department should target over the report during an Oval Office press event with visiting Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos.
Fox News
an hour ago
- Politics
- Fox News
Trump calls for Obama to be criminally investigated, says he was Russiagate 'ringleader'
NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles! President Donald Trump claimed that former President Barack Obama was the "ringleader" of Russiagate, calling for him to be criminally investigated amid new claims that members of his administration allegedly "manufactured" intelligence that prompted the Trump–Russia collusion narrative. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard recently declassified documents revealing "overwhelming evidence" that claimed that after Trump won the 2016 election against Hillary Clinton, then-President Obama and his national security team allegedly laid the groundwork for what would be the yearslong Trump–Russia collusion probe. OBAMA ADMIN 'MANUFACTURED' INTELLIGENCE TO CREATE 2016 RUSSIAN ELECTION INTERFERENCE NARRATIVE, DOCUMENTS SHOW Gabbard said the documents revealed that Obama administration officials "manufactured and politicized intelligence" to allegedly create the narrative that Russia was attempting to influence the 2016 presidential election, despite information from the intelligence community stating otherwise. The new documents name Obama, top officials on his National Security Council, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, CIA Director John Brennan, national security advisor Susan Rice, Secretary of State John Kerry, Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, among others. Gabbard, on Monday, sent a criminal referral to the Justice Department related to those findings. Department of Justice officials did not share further details on whom the criminal referral was for. OBAMA OFFICIALS USED DOSSIER TO PROBE, BRIEF TRUMP DESPITE KNOWING IT WAS UNVERIFIED 'INTERNET RUMOR' As for Gabbard's criminal referral, Trump was asked which specific figures should be under criminal investigation, to which he replied: "President Obama. He started it." "And Biden was there with him, and Comey was there, and Clapper, the whole group was there. Brennan. They were all there in the room right here. This is the room," Trump said from the Oval Office Tuesday during a meeting with the president of the Philippines. "It was President Obama. It was lots of people all over the place." None of the former Obama-era officials have responded to Fox News Digital's request for comment. The president went on to say that his administration has "all of the documents, and from what Tulsi told me, she's got thousands of additional documents coming." "So President Obama, it was his concept – his idea," Trump said Tuesday. "But he also got it from crooked Hillary Clinton – crooked as a $3 bill, and Hillary Clinton and her group, the Democrats, spent $12 million to Christopher Steele to write up a report that was a total fake report." Steele authored the discredited anti-Trump dossier, which was paid for by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee through law firm Perkins Coie. The anti-Trump dossier served as the basis for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants against former Trump campaign aide Carter Page. The intelligence community, at the time, widely viewed the dossier as "internet rumor," but top officials, like Comey, McCabe and Brennan, reportedly pushed for its inclusion in the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment. "It took two years to figure that out, but it came out that it was a total fake report – it was made-up fiction – and they used that," Trump said. "The Steele report was a disaster – all lies, all fabrication, all admitted fraud." Meanwhile, Trump said "we caught Hillary Clinton, we got Barack Hussein Obama. They're the ones. And then you have many, many people under them. Susan Rice – they're all the names." OBAMA OFFICIALS ADMITTED THEY HAD NO 'EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE' OF TRUMP-RUSSIA COLLUSION: HOUSE INTEL TRANSCRIPTS "I guess they figured they're going to put this in as classified information and nobody will ever see it again – but it doesn't work that way," Trump said. "It is the most unbelievable thing I think I've ever read." Trump added: "Never has a thing like this happened in the history of our country." On July 28, 2016, Brennan briefed President Obama on a plan from one of Clinton's campaign foreign policy advisors "to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service," meeting notes said. FBI LAUNCHES CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS OF JOHN BRENNAN, JAMES COMEY: DOJ SOURCES "We're getting additional insight into Russian activities from (REDACTED)," read Brennan's handwritten notes, exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital in October 2020. "CITE (summarizing) alleged approved by Hillary Clinton a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service." After that briefing, the CIA properly forwarded that information through a Counterintelligence Operational Lead (CIOL) to Comey and Deputy Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Peter Strzok, with the subject line: "Crossfire Hurricane." CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller was appointed to take over the FBI's original "Crossfire Hurricane" investigation. After nearly two years, Mueller's investigation, which concluded in March 2019, yielded no evidence of criminal conspiracy or coordination between the Trump campaign and Russian officials during the 2016 presidential election. Shortly after, John Durham was appointed as special counsel to investigate the origins of the "Crossfire Hurricane" probe. Durham found that the FBI "failed to act" on a "clear warning sign" that the bureau was the "target" of a Clinton-led effort to "manipulate or influence the law enforcement process for political purposes" ahead of the 2016 presidential election. Comey and Brennan are currently under criminal investigation, launched by FBI Director Kash Patel.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump's Wildly Fascistic Posting Spree Isn't Just a Distraction From Epstein
President Donald Trump shared an AI-generated video depicting FBI agents arresting former President Barack Obama and dragging him out of the Oval Office during a Sunday night Truth Social posting spree. The sitting president shared or wrote multiple posts endorsing the jailing of his political enemies, largely citing far-right conspiracy theories. The torrent comes as he seeks to distract the public from the Jeffrey Epstein catastrophe that has consumed his administration for weeks. Trump's fascistic fantasies about making his enemies — from Democratic lawmakers to late-night hosts — suffer aren't just a distraction, though. They're part of the very real authoritarian project he and his administration have been actively carrying out for the past six months, and that they appear determined to continue carrying out through the rest of his time in office. The video of federal agents dragging Obama away, which appears to have been generated with AI, is set to the tune of the Village People's 'Y.M.C.A.' and opens with a compilation of clips showing Democratic officials and lawmakers — including Obama, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and former President Joe Biden — saying the phrase 'no one is above the law.' The video then cuts to an AI-generated clip of Trump and Obama sitting in the Oval Office, where FBI agents enter, force Obama to his knees, handcuff and arrest him as Trump grins. The video ends with another AI-generated clip of the former president sitting in a jail cell, clad in an orange jumpsuit. Trump has been fuming for days now over accusations raised by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard that Obama and high-level officials from his administration engaged in a 'treasonous conspiracy in 2016' against Trump. Gabbard accused the Obama administration of having 'manufactured and politicized intelligence to lay the groundwork for what was essentially a yearslong coup against President Trump,' related to 2016 Russian election interference efforts. Trump on Sunday also shared an AI-generated video — from an account credited as 'DeepFakeQuotes' — of a man wearing a Guy Fawkes mask telling viewers that 'this is not a conspiracy theory, this is not speculation, this is documented fact.' The video's split screen features a headline highlighting Gabbard's suggestion that Obama and other officials should be prosecuted over their supposed participation in the alleged scheme. Keeping with the theme of prosecuting his political rivals, Trump also posted a photo grid in the style of The Brady Bunch's opening credits ('The Shady Bunch,' read the center square) that featured several prominent Obama-era Democrats in orange jumpsuits, holding up police placards as if posing for mug shots. Obama, former United Nations Ambassadors Samantha Power and Susan Rice, former Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes, former FBI Director James Comey, and former CIA Director John Brennan were depicted in the image. Another AI-generated image the president shared depicted what were presumably handcuffed lawmakers being marched in front of the Capitol with the caption 'UNTIL THIS HAPPENS NOTHING CHANGES.' He also wrote on Sunday that Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), one of the president's longtime targets whom he recently accused of mortgage fraud, should 'pay the price of prison for a real crime, not one made up by the corrupt accusers!' Lest anyone forget that the president is a 79-year-old addicted to his personal social media platform, Trump took a brief detour in his posting journey to share a 'top-25' compilation of dated viral videos, set to stock rock music. It was a bizarre palate cleanser amid the barrage of authoritarian AI slop. In one sense, Trump appears to be trying to divert attention from the weekslong fallout from his administration's decision to bury files related to the Epstein investigation — a subject that has threatened to tear apart sections of the highest levels of the federal government and that has been so aggravating to the president that he has personally managed efforts to quell the 'MAGA rebellion' debacle. Trump seems desperate to return the national conversation to his openly fascistic plans for punishing his political enemies based on bogus narratives, while commanding every major private industry to do exactly what he wants. Trump actually getting everything he wants — for instance, Obama in a jumpsuit — is at best a long shot, particularly in light of the Supreme Court's presidential immunity decision that has greatly behooved Trump. Still, it would be a mistake to dismiss his reminders, on Truth Social and elsewhere, of his administration's authoritarian schemes as mere distractions from Epstein. This is largely because his administration has already proved it is willing to pursue the kinds of fascistic fantasies he has been teasing on Truth Social. In his online rage-posting spree over the weekend, Trump commanded multiple professional sports teams to make their names racist again. He did this after six months of showing that he's more than willing to corruptly wield the federal government to make private entities' lives miserable if they don't do exactly what he wants them to do. Late last week, Trump cattily celebrated CBS' cancellation of The Late Show, hosted by frequent Trump critic and comedian Stephen Colbert. The network's move came against the backdrop of parent company Paramount working to consummate its multibillion-dollar merger with Skydance — a merger that Trump and his government have made clear they could crush whenever they feel like it. 'I absolutely love that Colbert got fired,' Trump posted on Friday. 'I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next.' His dig at Kimmel, who hosts a late-night show on ABC isn't just a distraction, either. Multiple senior Trump administration officials have told Rolling Stone for months that the president is very serious — and has spoken to them repeatedly — about ideas for using government and FCC leverage against major companies in order to retaliate or even silence his nemeses in late-night comedy. In his first term in the White House, Trump wanted his Justice Department to go after NBC's Saturday Night Live and other programs that pissed him off, and he instructed his White House staff to pressure Disney to censor Kimmel, also a frequent Trump critic. Neither of those things worked, in part because some of his senior officials simply waited until he got bored and moved on. In his second term, he is almost entirely surrounded by lieutenants who want to help him get as close to achieving his authoritarian fantasies as possible. Indeed, several of the current senior Trump officials say the president and his team feel 'emboldened' by how many major corporate entities and other private organizations have bent the knee in recent months, with one Trump adviser saying the 'pounds of flesh' Team Trump has extracted already from places like Paramount Global and CBS are significantly more than they were expecting going into this second Trump era. The lesson this president and his top appointees are learning is that they can, in fact, get away with it, and that it can only benefit their autocratic cause to push the envelope further. And that is just as true during the weeks when Trump doesn't want you to talk about his former friend Jeffrey Epstein. More from Rolling Stone Jimmy Fallon Responds to Colbert Cancelation: 'I Don't Like What's Going On' Stephen Colbert Addresses Cancelation by Telling Trump to 'Go F-ck Yourself' Jon Stewart to CBS After Colbert's 'Late Show' Cancellation: 'Go F-ck Yourself' Best of Rolling Stone The Useful Idiots New Guide to the Most Stoned Moments of the 2020 Presidential Campaign Anatomy of a Fake News Scandal The Radical Crusade of Mike Pence
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump Goes Full Fascist: ‘Whether It's Right or Wrong, It's Time to Go After People'
President Donald Trump appears to be growing increasingly desperate to turn the national conversation away from his ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. He spent the weekend suggesting prominent Democrats should be prosecuted over bogus right-wing conspiracy theories, and on Tuesday he said it outright. 'Whether it's right or wrong, it's time to go after people,' he told reporters in the Oval Office. Trump was asked which Democratic figures the Justice Department should target specifically in light of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard's recent call for Obama administration officials to be 'prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law' over claims that they 'manufactured' intelligence to allege Russia worked to get Trump elected in 2016. 'It would be President Obama, he started it,' Trump replied. 'The leader of the gang was President Obama. Barack Hussein Obama, have you heard of him?' he continued. 'He's guilty, it's not a question. This was treason. This was every word you could think of. They tried to steal the election.' 'This is like proof, irrefutable proof that Obama was seditious, that Obama was trying to lead a coup,' Trump said later. 'It was with Hillary Clinton, with all of these other people, but Obama headed it up. … This is the biggest scandal in the history of our country.' Several investigations and review — including a bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee review in 2020 — have concluded that Russia worked to elect Trump over Clinton in 2016. Trump has repeatedly called the idea a 'hoax,' and has similarly been calling the Epstein scandal a 'hoax' in the face of backlash to the Justice Department announcing it would not be releasing any more material on the sex offender and longtime friend of the president — despite Trump and top Justice Department officials, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, promising supporters they would release the government's files on Epstein and the elites potentially in league with the disgraced financier. Trump's history with Epstein has been under the microscope as his administration has tried to bury the story. The Wall Street Journal reported last week on a salacious birthday note Trump wrote for Epstein in the early 2000s, and in which he allegedly wrote about how the two 'have certain things in common.' Rolling Stone reported on the lengths the administration went to kill the story, which Trump has denied. The president sued the Journal and its owner, Rupert Murdoch, for publishing the piece last week. Trump is now going on the offensive against his political enemies over long-disproven conspiracy theories, ostensibly to distract from his ties to a sex offender. 'We caught Hillary Clinton, we caught Barack Hussein Obama,' Trump said, adding: 'It's the most unbelievable thing I think I've ever read. You ought to take a look at that and stop talking about nonsense.' More from Rolling Stone Everyone Who's Backed Stephen Colbert Since CBS Canceled 'The Late Show' Jimmy Fallon Responds to Colbert Cancellation: 'I Don't Like What's Going On' Stephen Colbert Addresses Cancellation by Telling Trump to 'Go F-ck Yourself' Best of Rolling Stone The Useful Idiots New Guide to the Most Stoned Moments of the 2020 Presidential Campaign Anatomy of a Fake News Scandal The Radical Crusade of Mike Pence
Associated Press
an hour ago
- Politics
- Associated Press
Trump rehashes years-old grievances on Russia investigation after new intelligence report
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump rehashed longstanding grievances over the Russia investigation that shadowed much of his first term, lashing out Tuesday following a new report from his intelligence director aimed at casting doubt on long-established findings about Moscow's interference in the 2016 election. 'It's time to go after people,' Trump said from the Oval Office as he repeated a baseless claim former President Barack Obama and other officials had engaged in treason. Trump was not making his claims for the first time, but he delivered them when administration officials are harnessing the machinery of the federal government to investigate the targets of Trump's derision, including key officials responsible for scrutinizing Russia's attempts to intervene on Trump's behalf in 2016. Those backward-looking inquiries have taken place even as the Republican administration's national security agencies are confronting elevated and contemporary global threats. Gabbard's new report on the Russia investigation Trump's tirade, a detour from his official business as he hosted the leader of the Philippines, unfolded against the backdrop of a new report from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard that represented his administration's latest attempt to rewrite the history of the Russia investigation, which has infuriated him for years. The report, released Friday, downplayed the extent of Russian interference in the 2016 election by highlighting Obama administration emails showing officials had concluded before and after the contest that Moscow had not hacked state election systems to manipulate votes in Trump's favor. But Obama's Democratic administration never suggested otherwise even as it exposed other means by which Russia interfered in the election, including through a massive hack-and-leak operation of Democratic emails by intelligence operatives working with WikiLeaks, as well as a covert foreign influence campaign aimed at swaying public opinion and sowing discord through fake social media posts. Gabbard's report appears to suggest the absence of manipulation of state election systems is a basis to call into question more general Russian interference. Democrats swiftly decried the report as factually flawed and politically motivated. 'It is sadly not surprising that DNI Gabbard, who promised to depoliticize the intelligence community, is once again weaponizing her position to amplify the president's election conspiracy theories,' wrote Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Several investigations found Russian interference in 2016 Russian's broad interference in 2016 has been established through a series of investigations, including special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation and a thorough 2020 Senate Intelligence Committee report that was completed when the panel was led by Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, who's now Trump's secretary of state. A different special counsel appointed by the Trump Justice Department to hunt for problems in the origins of the Russia investigation, John Durham, did find flaws but not related to what Gabbard sought to highlight in her report. 'Few episodes in our nation's history have been investigated as thoroughly as the Intelligence Community's warning in 2016 that Russia was interfering in the election,' said Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. He added that every legitimate investigation, including the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee probe, 'found no evidence of politicization and endorsed the findings of the 2016 Intelligence Community Assessment.' Gabbard's document was released weeks after a CIA report that reexamined a 2017 intelligence community assessment on Russian interference. That new review, ordered by CIA Director John Ratcliffe, did not dispute Russia had interfered but suggested officials were rushed in the intelligence assessment they produced. Seeking investigations of former officials Ratcliffe has since referred former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey to the Justice Department for investigation. The department appeared to acknowledge an open investigation into both former officials in an unusual statement earlier this month, but the status or contours of such inquiries are unclear. Besides Obama, Trump on Tuesday rattled off a list of people he accused of acting criminally 'at the highest level,' including Comey, his 2016 Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton and former national intelligence Ddirector James Clapper. He accused Obama, without evidence, of being the 'ringleader' of a conspiracy to get him. Obama has never been accused of any wrongdoing as part of the Russia investigation, and, in any event, a landmark Supreme Court opinion from last year shields former presidents from prosecution for official acts conducted in office. Trump launched his tirade when asked about the Justice Department's effort to speak with Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein who was convicted of helping the financier sexually abuse underage girls. 'I don't really follow that too much,' he said. 'It's sort of a witch hunt, a continuation of the witch hunt.' Trump is under pressure from conspiracy-minded segments of his political base to release more about the Epstein case. He's tried to move on, which Democrats say is because of his association with Epstein. Trump has denied knowledge or involvement of Epstein's crimes and said he ended their friendship years ago. As the scrutiny has grown in recent weeks, Trump administration officials have escalated their focus on other matters like the Russia investigation.
