The office of former President Barack Obama made the rare move of responding to recent allegations from President Donald Trump on Tuesday.
Trump and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard have spent the last several days accusing Obama and his administration of treason, claiming they orchestrated a hoax to undermine confidence in Trump’s election victory in 2016.
Last week, Gabbard shared communications between intelligence officials that said Russian interference with the infrastructure of American elections was unlikely. Later investigations into Russian election meddling focused on influence campaigns, not structural attacks, but Gabbard said the lack of concern was proof of a “treasonous conspiracy” against Trump.
On Tuesday, Trump encouraged reporters in the Oval Office to set their sights on the former president and his supposed coconspirators.
“Barack Hussein Obama is the ringleader. Hillary Clinton was right there with him, and so was Sleepy Joe Biden,” he said. “They tried to rig an election, and then they got caught.”
A spokesperson for Obama called Trump’s claims “outrageous.”
“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,” they shared in a statement. “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.”
Obama’s spokesperson went on to say that Trump officials’ own investigations into the 2016 election came to the same conclusions.
“These findings were affirmed in a 2020 report by the bipartisan Senate Intel Committee, led by … Marco Rubio,” they shared.
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