Attorney General Pam Bondi has opened a grand jury investigation into Obama-era officials connected to the 2016 Trump-Russia probe. The move comes as the Trump administration ramps up a distraction campaign amid the ongoing Jeffrey Epstein scandal, which refuses to fade away.
This new grand jury doesn’t mean charges are coming immediately against former President Barack Obama or his team. Instead, it lets prosecutors subpoena witnesses and dig into the Russia investigation in search of damaging information.
CNN reported Bondi’s decision Monday afternoon, citing a source familiar with the matter.
What crimes the Trump team suspects haven’t been clearly spelled out. The main push comes from a memo released by Trumps Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. She claims Obama and top intelligence officials altered reports to suggest Russia backed Trump in 2016 — a claim critics say is unproven.
Gabbard accused, “The Democratic administration’s top intelligence chiefs, at the behest of the president and his team, changed those conclusions to insinuate Russia’s support for Donald Trump.” She called it a “coup” against Trump’s presidency.
But intelligence community findings showed Russian hackers targeted the Democratic National Committee to damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign. No similar attacks were aimed at Trump’s team.
In 2019, Trump ordered his own review of how the Russia investigation began. Special counsel John Durham looked into the matter but found no charges warranted against Obama officials.
However, as the Epstein scandal continues to haunt the Trump administration, this new grand jury investigation seems part of a larger distraction effort. By focusing on old claims about the Russia probe, Trump’s team hopes to shift attention away from the Epstein narrative.t.
