If it were anyone but Donald Trump doing it, this latest pathetic attempt to distract from a burgeoning sex scandal would be laughed out of town. I speak, of course, about the ridiculous accusation that former president Barack Obama committed treason back in 2016 when his administration investigated the Russian interference in the presidential election — an election which no one disputed that Trump legitimately won. But because he has shown in this second term that he is willing to blow up every norm, rule and law without blinking an eye, it’s fair to worry just a little bit that something quite dangerous could be afoot.
The term “treason” is often thrown around to denote any act of betrayal but the U.S. Constitution, in Article III, Section 3, defines treason as “levying war against the United States or adhering to its enemies, giving them aid and comfort.” The Congress has determined that it is punishable by death and while saying this may be typical Trump hyperbole the group he has around him are running with this latest attempt to relitigate this grievance.
It was only a few weeks ago that the absurdly unqualified Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was on the outs with the president over public comments that Iran was not close to obtaining a nuclear weapon. Trump was being pressured by Israel to bomb their facilities at the time and he rejected her assessment and reportedly left her out of important meetings and considered eliminating her position altogether.
Gabbard is a survivor, however, and has always had a rather unnatural enthusiasm for all things Russia, so she released a timely “investigation” into the 2016 post-election interference probe that has handed Trump and his henchmen a new straw to clutch as they desperately try to point the press and their own supporters in any direction except Jeffrey Epstein. On the heels of CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s referral of former FBI Director James Comey, former CIA Director John Brennan and former DNI James Clapper to the FBI for allegedly making false statement to Congress and other obscure acts of wrongdoing Gabbard has asked the Department of Justice to investigate whether the Obama administration faked the evidence of Russian interference in that election.
Trump was asked who the DOJ should look into at one of his many long-winded oval office gatherings and in a lengthy incoherent rant, he accused President Obama of committing treason:
His entire diatribe is nonsense. Trump and Gabbard’s breathless allegations are based on intelligence from before the election and various statements by officials which found that Russia did not alter the results by attacking the voting systems but rather interfered by hacking the email systems of Democratic Party officials and a propaganda influence campaign which everyone who lived through the period already knows. And that would include Donald Trump who talked about the hacked emails incessantly during the campaign.
One might have thought that a sharp reporter in the room would have turned to Secretary of State Marco Rubio who was seated next to the president and asked if he would care to comment since he was the Chairman of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee which produced the definitive report on the Russian interference campaign in 2020 and concluded that it was anything but a hoax. Unfortunately no one did that but Rubio is on the record:
It would be easy to dismiss this whole thing as just another Trump tirade but unfortunately he has a very biddable Attorney General in Pam Bondi, who happens to be fidgeting on the MAGA hot seat at the moment having disappointed the faithful with her handling of the Epstein affair. There is every reason to believe that she will take this as far as the boss deems it necessary and as brittle and angry as he seems to be about all that, it’s not unthinkable that he would order someone to be indicted on these bogus charges, whether they make any sense or not.
Bondi has already ordered a “strike force” to investigate the allegations and Senators Lindsey Graham , R-S.C., and John Cornyn, R-Tx., are calling for a Special Counsel. There have already been two — Robert Mueller and John Durham — but maybe a third will finally get them the indictments of big names that they’ve been craving all these years.
Former President Obama’s office felt compelled to respond by dismissing the accusations as “ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction” which is correct but they must also be at least slightly concerned that Bondi and her hand-picked Trump lawyers are prepared to go to the mat after their mishandling of the Epstein Files scandal. Whether Obama is immune from prosecution due to the recent Supreme Court ruling designed to help Trump break as many laws as possible is beside the point. Trump will go after his associates:
“It probably helps him a lot. Probably helps him a lot. The immunity ruling. But it doesn’t help the people around him at all…He’s done criminal acts, there’s no question about it. But he has immunity. And it probably helps him a lot. He owes me big. Obama owes me big.”
Obama did not commit any crimes and neither did the other officials. Unfortunately, the political press appears to be ready to dive right in. Axios reported over the weekend that the “two scandals” are unfolding on parallel tracks, despite the fact that one of them is a patently obvious distraction based on easily refuted facts:
The Trump administration’s feverish push for “transparency” over the 2016 Russia investigation is fast becoming a vehicle for MAGA’s white whale: the potential prosecution of former President Obama.
Why it matters: President Trump’s war on his predecessor is dramatically escalating just as he faces new pressure over his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files — with a steady stream of leaks extending the scandal, day by day.
For MAGA, the new focus on “Russiagate” offers a unifying reprieve — a return to familiar territory where Trump is the victim of a conspiracy, not the subject of one.
It’s a retribution campaign that’s deeply personal to Trump’s most loyal supporters, and one that could plunge the U.S. into uncharted territory if carried to its extreme conclusion.
Trump is thrilled to see the media take the bait. He said of Gabbard, “she’s the hottest one in the room right now,” an unfortunate turn of phrase under the current circumstances but one which trips so easily off his tongue that it can only remind everyone of the scandal he’s trying to avoid. The question now is whether Bondi will be able to redeem herself as adroitly as Gabbard has done. She knows what she has to do. Will she have the guts to do it?