Tulsi Gabbard calls for Obama to be prosecuted over 2016 election claims

 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/18/tulsi-gabbard-obama-2016-election-russia

Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, has called for Barack Obama and former senior US national security officials to be prosecuted after accusing them of a “treasonous conspiracy” intended to show that Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential election win was due to Russian interference.

She said Obama and senior officials in his administration had “[laid] the groundwork for … a years-long coup” against Trump after his victory over Hillary Clinton by “manufacturing intelligence” to suggest that Russia had tried to influence the election. That included using a dossier prepared by a British intelligence analyst, Christopher Steele, that they knew to be unreliable, Gabbard claimed.

The attempt to return the spotlight back to the Russia investigation – long derided by Trump as a “hoax” – comes as the US president finds himself in the maelstrom of the lingering scandal over the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was found dead in his prison cell in 2019 while awaiting prosecution on sex-trafficking charges.

Gabbard’s nomination as national intelligence director was one of Trump’s most contentious. It drew criticism because of her lack of previous intelligence experience, having never even served on a congressional committee on the subject, and a track record of supportive comments about Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and repeating Kremlin talking points on the war with Ukraine.