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Obama Breaks Silence and Slams Trump’s “Weak Attempt at Distraction”
Former President Barack Obama is fed up with Trump’s outrageous attacks.
newrepublic.com
Obama Breaks Silence and Slams Trump’s “Weak Attempt at Distraction”
Former President Barack Obama is fed up with Trump’s outrageous attacks.
Alex Wong/Getty Images
Barack Obama is hitting back at the Trump administration for accusing the former president of treason.
Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, last week shared documents that she misleadingly claimed proved that the Obama White House manufactured intelligence about Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election “to lay the groundwork for what was essentially a years-long coup against President Trump.”
The president seems keen on using this purported evidence of “sedatious” activity (as he inventively put it Tuesday) to force the national conversation off his perceived lack of transparency regarding the case of deceased sex criminal and his former friend Jeffrey Epstein.
The president on Sunday shared memes about imprisoning Obama. On Tuesday, he told a reporter with an Epstein-related inquiry that Gabbard’s story is what they “should be talking about” instead.
Later Tuesday, Obama spokesman Patrick Rodenbush responded to the attacks with a statement excoriating Trump’s allegations as “bizarre,” “ridiculous,” and “a weak attempt at distraction.”
“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,” the statement reads. “But these claims are outrageous enough to merit one.”
Rodenbush continues: “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.”
“These findings,” he also points out, “were affirmed in a 2020 report by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee,” which was then chaired by Marco Rubio—meaning that, somewhat uncomfortably for Trump, Gabbard’s accusations of “treasonous conspiracy,” taken at face value, would implicate the second-highest-ranking official in his Cabinet.
Bipartisan interest in publicizing the Epstein files has brought together the most unlikely of allies.
Representatives Nancy Pelosi, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jamie Raskin, Lauren Boebert, and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez are just some of the names who have co-sponsored H.Res.581, dubbed the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
Introduced by Representative Thomas Massie, who has a habit of actually standing up to Donald Trump, the bill aims to “make publicly available in a searchable and downloadable format all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in the possession of the Department of Justice, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and United States Attorneys’ Offices” relating to child sex traffickers Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
The text of the bill specifies the release of flight logs, travel records, the names of individuals and government officials connected to Epstein’s “criminal activities, civil settlements, immunity or plea agreements, or investigatory proceedings,” the names of corporations or organizations tied to Epstein’s trafficking networks, potential immunity deals or sealed settlements, as well as “internal DOJ communications.”
A dozen Republicans have signed on to the effort in total, including Representatives Tim Burchett, Eric Burlison, Jeff Van Drew, Eli Crane, Cory Mills, Tom Barrett, Max Miller, Nancy Mace, and Keith Self.
But the effort isn’t likely to get off the ground anytime soon. House GOP leadership announced Tuesday afternoon that “votes are no longer expected in the House on Thursday,” with last votes taking place on Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. ET, ending the schedule a day early and starting the beginning of a five-week summer recess.
“I think everyone wants to see the information that was sealed away,” Greene told reporters inside the Capitol Tuesday morning, highlighting that at minimum, the prospective legislation would have to wait for the courts to reply to Attorney General Pam Bondi’s request to unseal the documents. “I’m all for voting on it, I’m all for transparency. We just have to be a little patient.”
House Republicans did already have a chance to stand up for transparency last week, but 211 of the caucus’s 212 members voted to block a Democratic-led effort to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files.
