Trump demands prosecution of Obama over alleged 2016 election plot
US President Trump is demanding the Department of Justice prosecute former President Obama over newly declassified intelligence that allegedly exposes a coordinated effort by Obama-era officials to fabricate Russian interference claims and undermine the 2016 election.
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US President Donald Trump meets with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., in the Oval Office of the White House, Tuesday, July 22, 2025, in Washington (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
US President Donald Trump is escalating his calls for accountability over what he claims was a coordinated effort by the Obama administration to sabotage his 2016 presidential campaign, an operation he insists continued through the 2020 cycle.
Speaking at the White House on Tuesday, Trump directly accused former President Barack Obama and senior officials of orchestrating a scheme to fabricate ties between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives. "They [the Office of the Director of National Intelligence] caught [former] President Obama, absolutely cold, what they [Obama administration officials] did to this country starting in 2016, but going all the way up to the 2020 election," Trump said. "They tried to rig the election, and they got caught, and there should be very severe consequences for that."
Trump also urged the Department of Justice to pursue charges against Obama, claiming it was necessary to defend democratic integrity. His remarks come on the heels of a statement from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who revealed Sunday that her office has compiled evidence sufficient to support criminal charges against former Obama administration officials.
Trump Seeks Retribution
According to Gabbard, the evidence includes over 100 pages of declassified documents indicating that intelligence agencies were pressured in late 2016 to shift their assessments and promote unverified claims, particularly those based on the now-discredited Steele dossier, linking Trump to a Russian election interference plot. She characterized the move as a deliberate act of political sabotage and stated that more revelations would be released shortly.
The allegations appear to validate Trump’s long-standing assertion that the Russia probe was a politically driven hoax designed to delegitimize his presidency and block his re-election. Now back in office, Trump is pushing aggressively to settle what he calls a historic injustice. "They got caught," he said. "There should be very severe consequences for that."
Read more: Obama officials may face charges over Russia probe: Gabbard
While Republican allies have rallied behind the president’s demand for prosecutions, critics have dismissed the allegations as part of a broader effort to exact political revenge and erase the findings of earlier bipartisan investigations, including the Mueller report, which concluded that Russia did interfere in the 2016 election.
Still, with a second term underway and his allies now holding key positions across intelligence and law enforcement agencies, Trump appears more determined than ever to pursue legal action against the architects of what he has labeled “the crime of the century.” Whether the DOJ will act on Gabbard’s findings remains to be seen, but the political consequences of the unfolding drama are already reverberating across Washington.