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Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told Newsmax on Thursday it’s not difficult for her to determine that former President Barack Obama and members of his administration engaged in a “treasonous conspiracy” to undermine President Donald Trump’s first term.

Gabbard on July 18 and Wednesday released a trove of declassified documents that pointed to Obama directing the creation of a false intelligence assessment by James Clapper, his director of national intelligence, and John Brennan, his CIA director, in January 2017 that was used to delegitimize Trump’s presidency after his victory over Hillary Clinton.

“When you look at this manufactured intelligence assessment that President Obama ordered be created in January of 2017 within the context of everything that happened before and everything that happened over those four years of the first Trump administration, then it is hard to draw, in my view, any conclusion other than that which I’ve already said, which is this was a conspiracy, a treasonous conspiracy to undermine the legitimacy of President Trump in that 2016 election and the legitimacy of his presidency, and enacted what was essentially a yearslong coup,” Gabbard told “The Record With Greta Van Susteren.”

Gabbard said her commitment to election integrity dates to her time as a Democrat representative for Hawaii’s second congressional district from 2013-21.

“This is something of paramount importance, obviously, to President Trump, but really to the American people to have faith and trust in the integrity of our democratic republic,” she said. “And so, we’ve really spent the last few months since I’ve been on this job focused on finding the truth. Very simply finding the truth to bring about transparency and accountability. So, in the documents that we released last week and as well as this week, it really brings forward very clear evidence.”

The Department of Justice on Wednesday launched a strike force tasked with assessing the evidence released by Gabbard and investigating potential legal steps that might stem from her disclosures. Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas on Thursday called for Attorney General Pam Bondi to appoint a special counsel, who works independently from the DOJ, to further investigate.

“The report that we released yesterday [Wednesday] was a result of an investigation that the House Intelligence Committee staff conducted,” Gabbard said. “It took them well over a year interviewing several of the intelligence professionals that were involved in the production of this manufactured intelligence document.

“And it really goes line by line, detailing how this assessment that was created in January of 2017 at the direction of President Obama, literally manufactured intelligence, knowingly put down falsehoods in order to reach this assessment conclusion that I stated that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and Russia aspired to help Donald Trump win the election when it was blatantly false. They knew it was false, yet they sold it to the American people as though it were true.”

Obama spokesperson Patrick Rodenbush said in a statement Tuesday posted on X, a day before Gabbard released more damaging documents, that it was “outrageous” the former president was being accused of treason.

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Michael Katz ✉

Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.

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