President Barack Obama’s former aides reportedly hope to conceal rapidly unfolding revelations about the apparent conspiracy between Obama and his top intelligence chiefs to pin President Donald Trump to Russia from the wider American public, according to an NBC report.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has declassified documents in recent days revealing the spun or manufactured intelligence undergirding a 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment — directed by Obama and executed by his top intelligence officials, Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan, Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper — concluding that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to secure a win for Trump. The ICA touched off years of “Russiagate” media frenzy, in part by elevating the outlandish claims in the Steele dossier, an opposition research file funded by rival Hillary Clinton.
Gabbard said that she had made a criminal referral to the Department of Justice related to the domestic intelligence operation against the then-president-elect, which she described as a “years-long coup and treasonous conspiracy against the American public.”
Now Obama’s allies hope the American public never learns the details, according to NBC, citing anonymous sources in the former president’s camp.
“The battle now is to play this even to make sure that thoughts don’t start to creep into more mainstream” audiences, a former Obama administration official told the outlet.
The same former Obama aide told NBC that they are counting on “mainstream Republicans” to listen to editorial boards and those in Congress who deemed the allegations against Obama as “beyond the pale.”
Obama allies told NBC they questioned the timing of the declassifications after the Department of Justice and FBI announced there would be no new disclosures related to pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein earlier in July. Gabbard’s working group to curb spy abuses and declassify intelligence in the public interest has been undertaking this work since April.
The newly declassified documents did not make the front pages of the New York Times and Washington Post on July 24. The papers shared a 2018 Pulitzer Prize for reporting on Russian election interference and collusion with the Trump campaign that largely relied on anonymous sources. The Pulitzer Prize Board of Directors faces a libel lawsuit brought by Trump over the validity of that prize.
Did you not hear that DNI Gabbard exposed a story with historic implications yesterday? Why the media black out? Why are you afraid to tell the truth to the American people?
Ignoring the culpability of Obama and your deep state sources will not change… pic.twitter.com/Y1hbNDJcTb
— Office of the DNI (@ODNIgov) July 24, 2025
Obama denied allegations of wrongdoing in a statement through a spokesperson on July 22.
“These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction,” said Obama spokesperson Patrick Rodenbush in a statement provided to multiple outlets. “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.”
Claims that Russian President Vladimir Putin “aspired” to rig the 2016 election with a “clear preference” for Trump drew from raw intelligence reports that were ambiguous, unverified, contained errant claims, and in some cases never mentioned Trump at all, according to a House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence report declassified on July 23. It also suppressed contradictory evidence.
In addition to the House Intelligence report, Gabbard declassified documents on July 18 showing that several intelligence products and rank-and-file intel analysts reported that Russia did not have the capability to disrupt voting machines. A planned Dec. 8, 2016, Presidential Daily Brief to that effect was scuttled after Comey’s FBI withdrew its endorsement. As a result, Trump, who had been receiving intelligence briefings since November 2020, was never privy to this intelligence. The next day, on Dec. 9, 2016, Obama convened his national security staff in the White House Situation Room and tasked them with uncovering evidence of Russian interference.
“This was treason,” Trump said in the Oval Office Thursday. “And we have all of the documents. And from what I — Tulsi told me, she’s got thousands of additional documents coming.”
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