John Bolton, Trump’s former national security advisor, slammed Tulsi Gabbard’s report accusing former President Barack Obama of engaging in a “years-long coup” against President Donald Trump.
Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, last week declassified evidence that she said revealed a “treasonous conspiracy” committed by Obama and his government over the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Bolton, a frequent Trump critic, called Gabbard’s findings “exaggerated” and lacking in substance.
“She’s strung together a series of things that aren’t necessarily related, she’s exaggerated what actual congressional reports have said, she’s imagined evidence that doesn’t exist,” Bolton said Friday on NewsNation.
“So, if anybody really gets into it, it collapses pretty quickly. But as a campaign to save her job, I think it actually worked out pretty successfully for her,” he continued. Last month, Politico reported that the president was “down on her.”
“Whether it succeeded in distracting from the Jeffrey Epstein affair, I don’t know,” he added, alluding to the media firestorm over Trump’s ties to the late sex offender that has plagued the administration for weeks. “But there is, in substance, nothing to it and certainly no justification for the Justice Department to launch a criminal investigation.”
Gabbard’s report accuses Obama and the former intelligence community of leaking false information to the media and using “politicized intelligence” to subvert Trump’s 2016 election victory. She addressed the report from the White House this week. The report uses an investigation by Republicans in the House of Representatives, and go against CIA reports that Russia tried to help Trump in 2016.
“The information we are releasing today clearly shows there was a treasonous conspiracy in 2016 committed by officials at the highest level of our government,” the director of national intelligence said in a statement.
“Their goal was to subvert the will of the American people and enact what was essentially a years-long coup with the objective of trying to usurp the President from fulfilling the mandate bestowed upon him by the American people.”
In the wake of the report’s release, Democrats — including Obama — have accused the Trump administration of trying to use it to distract from the uproar over the so-called Epstein files.
“These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction,” a spokesperson for the office of the former president said.
Trump has been trying to distance himself from Epstein. He even went so far as to claim the Epstein files were a “hoax” cooked up by Democrats, including Obama, former President Biden, and former FBI Director James Comey.
The Epstein files have dominated the news cycle ever since the Justice Department released a July 6 memo that stated there would be no further disclosures and that there was no evidence to support the existence of a client list, putting a decisive end to months-long anticipation for more information on the case.
Outrage ensued, with members of Congress and Trump’s MAGA base alike calling for heightened transparency. Attorney General Pam Bondi released “Phase 1” of the Epstein files in February; that same month, she said the “client list” was sitting on her desk.
