Barack Obama Now Squarely in Russiagate Crosshairs

New disclosures from a Tulsi Gabbard-led working group point directly to the top, as the legacy of "Hope and Change" begins a plunge to the ocean floor

Barack Obama entered national politics with a smile that looked like Hope and Change. Amid rumors of family discord and disarray within the political party he once led, his face has hardened. He lately looks bitter, resentful, exhausted by the act.

In the wake of reports released by fellow Hawaiian and former Democrat Tulsi Gabbard, he also has a new problem. It once seemed a lock that Obama would be remembered as the winsome hero of Shepard Fairey’s portrait, but Gabbard’s documents place him at the center of an unprecedented act of political sabotage, committed in his last Oval Office days as a humiliated lame-duck in the winter of 2016-2017. The new Director of National Intelligence is targeting Obama’s legacy and maybe even his freedom, detailing a “treasonous conspiracy committed by officials at the highest level of our government,” announcing that everyone involved “must be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Ten days ago, news broke that Donald Trump’s Justice Department opened criminal investigations into two of Obama’s top deputies, former FBI chief James Comey and former CIA head John Brennan. Last Sunday, Gabbard’s ODNI hosted an “urgent” meeting to discuss “new information on Russiagate” with members of the Justice Department and the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board.

All week, Washington buzzed with rumors about imminent document releases, but what came out wasn’t what many expected. Gabbard’s documents show the Obama White House overruling months of reports downplaying Russian interference and ordering subordinates to set a time bomb of manipulated intelligence, with the aim of trying to, as Gabbard described it, “usurp” an incoming president. No longer a tertiary character, Obama is now “center square” in the Russiagate scam, as one source put it.

Mainstream press outlets like the New York Times and Politico have already run pieces quoting Democratic Party mouthpieces shrugging off Gabbard’s reports as “baseless” and an attempt to “change the subject,” but coverage may not matter, as the investigation into the Trump-Russia hoax is no longer about trying to change hearts and minds. Multiple sources say Gabbard’s team is focused on “accountability” by gathering evidence for court-ready cases. The matter may soon need a special prosecutor, putting Obama in the same position Trump occupied in the first two years of his presidency, on the run from a high-profile fox hunt.

The information from Gabbard’s office was not the only news on the Russiagate front. This investigation is not just about “ten-year-old news,” as has been a common talking point, but may also involve never-reported Biden-era issues. A source close to the investigation said yesterday that the DOJ is focusing on conspiracy charges and looking at conduct “from 2016 to 2024.” Another with ties to the administration said “President Trump’s national security team is looking at evidence that members of his 2024 campaign were spied on as well.”

All of that is yet to be determined. Until then, here’s a detailed review of what yesterday’s releases say, and why they signal a shift toward former president Obama: