Obama hits back at Trump 'treason' accusation over Russia investigation

Dave Goldiner, New York Daily News on Jul 22, 2025

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Former President Barack Obama hit back Tuesday at President Donald Trump’s accusation that his predecessor committed “treason” related to the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Hours after Trump falsely accused Obama of trying to rig the 2016 election, the ex-president’s office said it had no choice but to publicly refute the claim.

“These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction,” Obama’s office said in a statement.

The 44th commander in chief’s office debunked the claim that an intelligence report released last week by Trump Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard somehow amounts to new evidence against Obama or losing 2016 Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

The statement noted that neither Obama nor Clinton ever claimed that Russia succeeded in flipping votes from the Democrat to Trump’s column in the election that catapulted him to the White House.

It pointed to a 2020 bipartisan report by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, led by then-chairman ex-Sen. Marco Rubio, that instead accused Russia of seeking to influence the election in Trump’s favor.

“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,” Obama’s office said.

The statement came soon after Trump erupted in a rant against Obama during an Oval Office meeting with Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos.

“They caught President Obama absolutely cold,” Trump said. “They tried to rig the election and they got caught.”

“It’s time to go after people,” he added. “Obama’s been caught directly…He’s guilty. This was treason.”

Trump’s outburst is seen by critics as an attempt to distract from negative attention regarding his relationship with late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and unanswered calls to release files related to the notorious pedophile’s case.

Trump’s right-wing MAGA base has been pushing for the administration to publicly bare Department of Justice files on the case even after Attorney General Pam Bondi said she wouldn’t release any more information related to the sex-trafficking case.

Gabbard’s report, released Friday, appears to be the latest effort to change the subject from Epstein.

It downplayed the extent of Russian interference in the 2016 election by highlighting Obama administration emails showing officials had concluded before and after the presidential race 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.

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