Barack Obama Fires Back at Trump in Rare Statement
(AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
Former President Barack Obama’s office issued a rare statement on Tuesday responding to the latest flurry of attacks from President Donald Trump accusing Obama and members of his administration of criminal behavior.
“Out of respect for the office of the presidency, our office does not normally dignify the constant nonsense and misinformation flowing out of this White House with a response. But these claims are outrageous enough to merit one. These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a week attempt at distraction,” read the statement attributed to Patrick Rodenbush, a spokesperson for Obama. “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. These findings were affirmed in a 2020 report by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, led by then-Chairman Marco Rubio.”
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard sent a “criminal referral” to the Department of Justice on Monday pertaining to a “Obama administration conspiracy to subvert President Trump’s 2016 victory and presidency.”
Earlier on Tuesday, Trump said the following about the matter:
The witch hunt that you should be talking about is they caught President Obama. What they did to this country in 2016, starting in 2016 but going up to 2020 of the election, they tried to rig the election and they got caught. There should be very severe consequences for that. When we caught Hillary Clinton, I said, you know what, let’s not go too far here. It’s the ex-wife of a president and I thought it was sort of terrible. I let her off the hook and I’m very happy I did. But it’s time to start — after what they did to me and whether it’s the right or wrong — it’s time to go after people. Obama has been caught directly.
During a Saturday morning appearance on Fox News, Gabbard alleged that “President Obama and his team — he directed a manufactured piece of intelligence that detail not if but how Russia tried to influence the outcome of the United States election that Trump won in November of 2016,” describing the actions of the Obama administration as a “treasonous conspiracy.”
Fox News contributor and conservative legal commentator Andy McCarthy has dismissed Gabbard’s claims as “misleading,” arguing in a recent column for National Review that there is “good reason to wonder” if she reads “the reports” generated by the Trump administration’s own CIA.
