The irony in Tulsi Gabbard’s latest claim is hard to miss.
She’s accusing former President Barack Obama of treason for supposedly undermining the peaceful transfer of power to Donald Trump in 2016 — while defending the very man who refused to concede his own loss in 2020, falsely claimed the election was stolen, and was impeached for inciting a violent attempt to stop the certification of results on January 6.
Still, Gabbard insists Obama is the guilty one.
In an interview with Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk, Gabbard, who serves as Director of National Intelligence, said Obama and his top officials led a “treasonous conspiracy” by creating what she calls a false narrative about Trump and Russia to delegitimize the incoming president.
“There has to be a peaceful transfer of power,” Gabbard said. “Instead of accepting that this is the will of the people, what we saw is President Obama convening his national security team and concocting this contrived false narrative… with the specific intent of subverting the will of the American people and trying to delegitimize President Trump’s election.”
She pointed to declassified documents her office released, claiming they prove Obama’s team orchestrated a coordinated effort to damage Trump before he took office.
“So yes, this is a treasonous conspiracy that subverts the will of the American people,” Gabbard said. “They manufactured a hoax, they manufactured these lies, published it as though it were true, propagated this through the media to the American people.”
Gabbard says the intelligence community assessment produced in early 2017 was politically driven and designed to plant doubt about Trump’s legitimacy.
“When we look at our Democratic Republic, Charlie, our system is built on the foundation of the American people casting their votes… In this system, there has to be a peaceful transfer of power,” she said.
She added, “President Trump was elected by the American people in 2016 — shocking most people in the United States, and apparently even Russia and Putin didn’t think that he would win.”
But the record shows that while Obama expressed concern about Russian interference, he never denied Trump’s victory, never challenged the certification process, and never encouraged supporters to reject the results.
Trump, by contrast, continues to claim he won in 2020 despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. He attempted to overturn the results, pressured officials to “find votes,” and watched as his supporters stormed the Capitol to block certification.
Gabbard’s position flips the script — accusing Obama of doing exactly what Trump is widely known to have done. And in her words, that makes Obama guilty of treason.
Watch the interview below:
