Tulsi Gabbard calls for Obama to be prosecuted over 2016 election claims
Trump intelligence chief accuses ex-president and others of ‘treasonous conspiracy’ for alleging Russian interference
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 post-election intelligence estimates contrasted with findings reached before the election, which indicated that Russia probably was not trying to interfere, she claimed.
In extraordinary comments calling for prosecutions, she added: “The information we are releasing today clearly shows there was a treasonous conspiracy in 2016 committed by officials at the highest level of our government.
“Their goal was to subvert the will of the American people and enact what was essentially a years-long coup with the objective of trying to usurp the President from fulfilling the mandate bestowed upon him by the American people.
“No matter how powerful, every person involved in this conspiracy must be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, to ensure nothing like this ever happens again. The American people’s faith and trust in our democratic republic and therefore the future of our nation depends on it.”
Gabbard, a former Democratic member of Congress, said she was passing documents supporting her case to the justice department. They included a partially redacted intelligence community assessment from the Obama administration on cyber threats to the 2016 election and a series of previously classified memos, including some from the office of James Clapper, who served as Obama’s director of national intelligence.
Clapper is one of several officials named by Gabbard as apparently implicated in the supposed conspiracy. Others include John Brennan, the former CIA director, John Kerry, the then secretary of state, Susan Rice, the national security adviser at the time, Andrew McCabe, the then deputy FBI director, who later fell foul of Trump, and Obama himself.
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.
The Trump administration has come under mounting pressure from the president’s make America great again (Maga) base to release files on the case, including a supposed list of Epstein’s influential clients.
Trump, in response, has variously dismissed the existence of such files or said they were invented by Obama and members of his administration, including James Comey, the former FBI director, and Joe Biden, vice-president in the Obama administration.
Commentary accompanying a series of Obama-era memos published by Gabbard’s office uses terms characteristic of Trump and his most ardent supporters to paint an alleged conspiracy to discredit his 2016 win.
Following a meeting on 9 December 2016 of Obama’s most senior national security team, the document – entitled the Russia Hoax – says: “Deep State officials in the IC [intelligence community] begin leaking blatantly false intelligence to the Washington Post … claiming that Russia used “cyber means” to influence “the outcome of the election.
“Later that evening, another leak to the Washington Post falsely alleges that the CIA “concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened” in the election to help President Trump.”
On 6 January the following year, the document continues: “The Obama administration shares the unclassified ICA [intelligence community assessment] with the public. It falsely alleges, based in part on ‘further information’ that had ‘come to light’ since the election, that Putin directed an effort to help President Trump defeat Hillary Clinton. This ‘further information’ is later confirmed to be the Steele dossier.”
The assessment “suppressed” previous pre-election assessments that Russia lacked the intent or means to successfully hack the poll, Gabbard’s report alleges.
The Steele dossier, which contained salacious details of “kompromat” allegedly held by Russian intelligence on Trump, formed part of the basis for a lengthy investigation conducted by Robert Mueller, who was appointed as special counsel into the Russia affair. Mueller’s subsequent report concluded that Russia interfered “in sweeping and systematic fashion” in the election campaign but “did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated” with the Russian government’s activities.
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.
On my birthday, my sister smashed the cake straight into my face, laughing as she watched me fall backward, blood mixing with the frosting. Everyone said, “It’s just a joke.” But the next mo
On my birthday, my sister smashed the cake straight into my face, laughing as she watched me fall backward, blood mixing with the frosting. Everyone said, “It’s just a joke.”
But the next morning in the emergency room, the doctor studied my X-ray and immediately called 911—because what he saw… exposed a horrifying truth.
Part One: “It’s Just a Joke”
On my birthday, the room smelled like sugar and candles and cheap champagne. A pink cake sat in the center of the table, my name written across it in looping frosting. Everyone was laughing. Phones were out. Someone shouted for me to make a wish.
My sister stood closest to me.
She grinned, eyes bright with something that wasn’t kindness. Before I could even lean forward, her hands slammed the cake straight into my face.
The impact was harder than anyone expected.
I felt myself stumble backward, my heel catching on the rug. There was a sharp crack as my head hit the edge of the table, then the floor. For a split second, the room spun in white and pink. I tasted sugar—and then iron.
Blood mixed with frosting, dripping down my chin.
People screamed, then laughed nervously.
“Oh my God,” someone said, still chuckling. “It’s just a joke!”
My sister laughed the loudest. “Relax! You’re so dramatic.”
I tried to sit up. Pain exploded behind my eyes. My vision blurred, and the ceiling swayed like it was floating. Someone wiped my face with a napkin, smearing blood across my cheek.
“You’re fine,” my mother said quickly. “Don’t ruin the mood.”
I remember thinking how strange it was that my ears were ringing louder than the music.
I remember the taste of frosting as I swallowed blood.
I remember waking up hours later in my bed, alone, my head throbbing, my phone full of messages telling me not to be “too sensitive.”
By morning, I couldn’t lift my arm.
Part Two: The X-Ray That Changed Everything
The emergency room smelled like disinfectant and sleepless nights. The doctor asked how it happened. I hesitated, then said quietly, “I fell.”
He nodded, unconvinced, and ordered X-rays “just to be safe.”
I lay on the cold table staring at the ceiling, replaying the laughter over and over in my head. It’s just a joke. That sentence hurt almost as much as my skull.
When the doctor returned, he wasn’t smiling.
He stared at the image on the screen for a long time. Too long.
Then he left the room without a word.
Minutes later, he came back—with a nurse, a security officer, and his phone pressed to his ear.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “I need emergency services. Immediately.”
My heart started pounding. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
He turned to me, his voice careful. “This isn’t a simple fall.”
He pointed to the X-ray. Even I could see it—fine fractures branching like cracks in glass, not just in my skull, but along my collarbone and ribs. Old fractures. Healed wrong. Layered.
“These injuries happened at different times,” he said gently. “Some weeks apart. Some months.”
I stared at the screen, my mouth dry.
“I don’t understand,” I whispered.
He met my eyes. “This pattern isn’t accidental. And the impact that brought you in today could have killed you.”
The word killed echoed in my ears.
“Who did this to you?” he asked softly.
I thought of my sister’s grin. My parents’ laughter. All the times I’d been shoved, tripped, “joked” into walls. All the times I’d been told I was clumsy. Sensitive. Overreacting.
My hands began to shake.
“I think…” My voice broke. “I think it was never a joke.”
Part Three: When Laughter Turns Into Sirens
The police arrived quietly. Calmly. Like this wasn’t the first time they’d seen something like me.
They didn’t accuse. They asked questions.
Who was there last night?
Who pushed you?
How often do you get hurt?
For the first time, I didn’t minimize. I didn’t protect anyone. I told the truth.
By evening, my phone was exploding.
My mother crying.
My father furious.
My sister screaming that I had “ruined everything.”
“You’re exaggerating!” she yelled over voicemail. “It was cake! Everyone saw it!”
Everyone had seen it.
That was the horrifying truth.
Everyone had seen it—and laughed.
The investigation didn’t take long. Videos surfaced. Old medical records were reviewed. Witnesses contradicted themselves. Patterns became impossible to ignore.
What started as a “birthday prank” became an assault case.
What they called humor was documented as violence.
I was moved to a different room that night, monitored closely, safe for the first time in years. As I lay there, ice wrapped around my head, I realized something terrifying and freeing all at once:
If that cake hadn’t been smashed into my face…
If I hadn’t fallen just right…
The truth might have stayed buried forever.
Sometimes it takes breaking something visible to expose what’s been shattered for years.
