Latest news with #treason
The Independent
3 hours ago
- Politics
- The Independent
Massive spike in threats against Obama after Trump team claims he committed ‘treason'
Threats made online against former president Barack Obama spiked over the weekend after Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard accused him of a years-long coup attempt against President Donald Trump. Gabbard has claimed Obama and his top officials ran a 'treasonous conspiracy' by insinuating they manufactured an investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election to undermine Trump's first election. Hours after she made the claim, on July 18, violent rhetoric about Obama surged on platforms such as Truth Social, Telegram, and Gab, with some calling for his arrest, imprisonment, and execution. That rhetoric was intensified after the president posted an artificial intelligence-generated video of Obama being arrested and continued to re-post Gabbard's claims throughout the weekend. By July 19, threatening comments targeting Obama rose from three to 56 – a more than 1,700 percent increase, according to the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. Truth Social users posted rhetoric calling for a 'firing squad,' a 'public hanging,' and 'streaming' his execution live – all while decrying Obama for the alleged treason. One user called for Obama's execution by using memes of a guillotine, electric shock chair, and public hanging platform. For years, Trump has blamed Obama and other Democrats for abusing power to facilitate investigations or indictments into himself. Since taking back the White House, Trump has promised to conduct a campaign of retribution against those he believes have targeted him. The documents Gabbard referred to as evidence of Obama's meddling show that the Obama administration wanted a review of the allegations against Russia before leaving office and pressured intelligence agencies to work quickly. spokesperson for Obama denied Gabbard's allegations, calling them 'bizarre,' 'ridiculous,' and 'a weak attempt at distraction. The Independent has asked the White House for comment. The Global Project Against Hate and Extremism said similar violent rhetoric increased on Gab, a platform known for platforming right-wing extremists. Between July 17 and July 20, comments targeted Obama as treasonous and deserving punishment rose from nine to 48, a more than 400 percent increase. A review of targeted comments made on Telegram in the same timeline revealed that threats against Obama rose from zero to 12. A White House spokesperson told Newsweek that, "President Trump and the entire administration strongly condemn all forms of violence. The Trump administration also believes in accountability and that individuals who participate in criminal activity should be held to the fullest extent of the law.
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Immunity for me, not for thee: Trump's flip on prosecuting former presidents
As they seek to quell a revolt in their base over the Jeffrey Epstein files, President Donald Trump and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard have offered MAGA voters some tantalizing alternate programming: The prospect of charging Barack Obama with orchestrating a treasonous plot to undermine Trump's first presidency. The biggest problem with that is the sheer lack of evidence of any wrongdoing by Obama and other former officials. But even if the Trump administration produced a smoking gun, they'd have to contend with the issue of immunity for former presidents. Backing up a second, the idea Gabbard has promoted is that Obama pushed for manufactured intelligence about Russia's interference in the 2016 election to undercut Trump before he took office. The whole thing rests on a series of conflations and misleading claims. And the biggest findings in that intelligence have been affirmed over and over again, including by Republicans and including by Trump's now-Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a major 2020 Senate report. If people who said this stuff engaged in a coup, wasn't Rubio also complicit? But again, even if we set all that aside, there's the problem that Obama might well be immune from any such prosecution — thanks in no small part to Trump himself. Trump and Co. spent much of 2024 arguing that presidents should be immune from virtually any criminal charges. And they succeeded in large enough part at the Supreme Court that it seems unlikely their allegations — even if merited — could result in criminal prosecution for Obama. Despite Trump's and Gabbard's suggestions that Obama could be charged, Trump's own lawyers argued that such threats of prosecution were unthinkable because they would so hamstring a president. 'Without presidential immunity from criminal prosecution, there can be no presidency as we know it,' D. John Sauer, then Trump's personal lawyer and now his solicitor general, told the Supreme Court. Sauer even left open the idea that a president could order his political opponents to be assassinated and not face charges, because that act would be an official act of the president. The Supreme Court didn't go quite that far, but it did give the presidency a broad new grant of immunity. So would that immunity apply to Obama? The Supreme Court said actions taken under a president's core executive powers are immune. Beyond that, a president has the presumption of immunity for any actions that are 'within the outer perimeter of his official responsibility' — that is, actions that are 'not manifestly or palpably beyond [his] authority.' That's just the presumption, not actual immunity. But Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. in the opinion set a high bar for when immunity wouldn't apply. He said that, at a minimum, the president's 'outer perimeter' official acts must be immune unless the government proving its case 'would pose no 'dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.'' Precisely what all this means has been the subject of plenty of debate. It wasn't clear what it meant for Trump's Jan. 6-related prosecutions, which were the impetus for the ruling. Prosecutors and judges scrambled to reckon with what evidence and charges remained valid, but the cases never reached trial after Trump was elected. 'Assuming this nonsense is true, if Obama were acting in his official capacity in merely communicating with his intelligence folks about Russian interference, clear immunity,' Harvard University law professor Richard Lazarus said. 'But if the allegation is that Obama was stepping outside that role and acting in his personal capacity to help Clinton's campaign, then not so clear.' Still, it would be easier for Obama to argue that the actions in question were part of his official duties than it was for Trump to assert his efforts to overturn election results were presidential acts. Elections are largely conducted by the states and the president doesn't have a defined role. In Obama's case, the basis of Trump's and Gabbard's allegations is that he was participating in manufacturing intelligence reports. But would asking for intelligence not be part of his core (and theoretically immune) powers? And even if it's somehow not, wouldn't it be in the 'outer perimeter' of his official duties, where the bar for getting past immunity is higher? 'Communicating with intelligence officials would seem to fall into the scope of official duties,' UCLA law professor Rick Hasen said. Hasen also noted that any theoretical charges would have to overcome a major problem stemming from the Supreme Court's decision in Trump v. United States: They couldn't use official acts as evidence to prove the crime. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked repeatedly about this Wednesday at a briefing, and she punted multiple times on whether immunity applied to Obama. 'I'll leave that to the Department of Justice,' Leavitt eventually said. All of this might seem academic. It still seems a distant possibility that Trump and his Justice Department would ever press forward with trying to prosecute Obama. Trump makes these claims a lot and they tend to fall away. Judging by how his media allies are covering the Obama allegations much more than the saga over the Jeffrey Epstein files, it would seem this served as a temporary distraction. But it's also just so discordant. Trump and his lawyers argued that presidents had to be fully immune because it was absolutely essential to the executive job. Then he turns around and, just more than a year later, suggests those standards shouldn't be applied to his predecessor for actions that appear much more official than Trump's own. By the logic of Trump's lawyers, Obama in 2016 could have done much more than just massage intelligence reports; he could have put out a hit on Trump, and still possibly have been immune. It's almost like Trump's view was always: Immunity for me, not for thee.
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Even if Tulsi Gabbard's half-baked conspiracy had any merit, presidents are immune from prosecution for official acts.
Sen. Ted Cruz has admitted that Barack Obama is not going to be charged with treason, despite the Trump administration's attempts to smear the former president to deflect from the Jeffrey Epstein saga. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has accused Obama of engaging in a 'treasonous conspiracy' and 'years-long coup' against President Donald Trump over his administration's investigation of Russia's attempts to influence the 2016 election. Trump and his base have eagerly embraced the half-baked conspiracy and called for Obama's arrest, but now the president's own allies have been forced to admit Obama won't be on trial for treason anytime soon.
RNZ News
19 hours ago
- Politics
- RNZ News
Murkowski questions whether Trump admin is attacking Obama to distract from Epstein fallout
By Piper Hudspeth Blackburn , CNN Photo: AFP GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski questioned whether Trump administration officials are accusing former President Barack Obama of treason in order to distract from the fallout over its handling documents related to Jeffrey Epstein . "Obviously, this is new language. Words like treason are big words, right?" the Alaska Republican told CNN's Kaitlan Collins Wednesday in an interview on "The Source." "It does cause one to wonder if this is an effort by folks in the administration to have the conversation, move on to something else, other than the Epstein matter, move on to something else, another, somebody other than President Trump so let's go back to prior presidents," she said. "Based on the timing of all of this, it does kind of cause you to question," Murkowski said when asked by Collins if allegations from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard were a "distraction technique." GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski Photo: AFP / Getty Images / Drew Angerer Her comments come after weeks of failed efforts from Trump to mitigate backlash over his administration's decision not to release more documents related to the Epstein investigation . Murkowski told CNN that she encourages the release of more files from the probe, saying, "Just deal with the Epstein thing once and for all." "I think if they had done it earlier on and moved on to other things, maybe we wouldn't be in this place where everyone is now thinking about, you know, what's the next big conspiracy behind all this," she added. One day after President Donald Trump accused Obama of treason over the intelligence assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 election and sought to help Trump, Gabbard declassified a highly sensitive congressional report she claimed was more evidence of a "treasonous conspiracy." A spokesman for Obama dismissed the accusations from Trump. "These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction," said Patrick Rodenbush. A House Oversight subcommittee voted Wednesday to subpoena the Department of Justice for the Epstein files. - CNN
CNN
19 hours ago
- Politics
- CNN
Murkowski questions whether Trump admin is attacking Obama to distract from Epstein fallout
GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski questioned whether Trump administration officials are accusing former President Barack Obama of treason in order to distract from the fallout over its handling documents related to Jeffrey Epstein. 'Obviously, this is new language. Words like treason are big words, right?' the Alaska Republican told CNN's Kaitlan Collins Wednesday in an interview on 'The Source.' 'It does cause one to wonder if this is an effort by folks in the administration to have the conversation, move on to something else, other than the Epstein matter, move on to something else, another, somebody other than President Trump so let's go back to prior presidents,' she said. 'Based on the timing of all of this, it does kind of cause you to question,' Murkowski said when asked by Collins if allegations from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard were a 'distraction technique.' Her comments come after weeks of failed efforts from Trump to mitigate backlash over his administration's decision not to release more documents related to the Epstein investigation. Murkowski told CNN that she encourages the release of more files from the probe, saying, 'Just deal with the Epstein thing once and for all.' 'I think if they had done it earlier on and moved on to other things, maybe we wouldn't be in this place where everyone is now thinking about, you know, what's the next big conspiracy behind all this,' she added. One day after President Donald Trump accused Obama of treason over the intelligence assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 election and sought to help Trump, Gabbard declassified a highly sensitive congressional report she claimed was more evidence of a 'treasonous conspiracy.' A spokesman for Obama dismissed the accusations from Trump. 'These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction,' said Patrick Rodenbush. A House Oversight subcommittee voted Wednesday to subpoena the Department of Justice for the Epstein files.
