Former President Barack Obama issued a rare response to President Donald Trump‘s call on Tuesday for the Department to investigate and prosecute the former president.
Though Obama was a vocal critic of Trump throughout the 2024 campaign, making multiple appearances in support of both former President Joe Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris, the 63-year-old former commander in chief has largely avoided commenting on Trump’s performance back in office. That slipped on Tuesday following Trump’s rant in the Oval Office.
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“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,” Patrick Rodenbush, a spokesperson for Obama, said Tuesday afternoon. “But these claims are outrageous enough to merit one. These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction.”
“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,” Rodenbush continued. “These findings were affirmed in a 2020 report by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, led by then-Chairman Marco Rubio.”
Earlier in the day, Trump unleashed his ire on Obama while weaving out of a question about the Jeffrey Epstein case.
“Whether it’s right or wrong, it’s time to go after people,” Trump said, bringing up the report published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Friday, alleging that the Obama administration sought to tie Trump’s 2016 campaign to Russia, even after intelligence community assessments suggested that Russia wasn’t directly meddling in the election.
“Based on what I read, and I read pretty much what you read, it would be President Obama. He started it, and Biden was there with him, and Comey was there, and Clapper. The whole group was there,” he told reporters. “This was treason. This was every word you can think of. They tried to steal the election. They tried to obfuscate the election. They did things that nobody’s ever even imagined.”
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard called Obama’s rare Tuesday statement “the art of deflection.”
“There is a long laundry list of facts and intelligence reporting that directly contradict the statement coming from President Obama’s office and those who are trying to deflect away from what actually happened, which was after Donald Trump was elected, led by President Obama, there was an effort to create a document that would serve as a foundation for what would be a years long coup against President Trump,” she declared during a Tuesday interview on Fox News.
TRUMP BACKS OBAMA PROSECUTION AMID GOP BLOWBACK ON EPSTEIN: ‘THIS WAS TREASON’
However, even if the Justice Department were to prosecute Obama administration officials over their statements and actions regarding the 2016 election, the statute of limitations could limit the likelihood of building a case.