 "Ex-US NSA John Bolton lambasts Tulsi Gabbard over ‘treasonous’ Obama report, calls it 'exaggerated'")
US President Donald Trump’s former National Security Adviser John Bolton slammed US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard for accusing former US President Barack Obama of engaging in a “coup” against Trump. Last week, Gabbard stirred a storm after she declassified so-called evidence that she claimed revealed “treasonous conspiracy” committed by Obama and his aide.
The DNI’s report centres on the Obama administration’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Bolton, a known 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 told News Nation on Friday.
“So, if anybody 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. It is pertinent to note that Gabbard’s report against Obama came a week after several US media speculated that Trump was “losing confidence” in her.
There’s nothing to it: Bolton
When asked if Gabbard’s report was a distraction tactic from the media frenzy over Trump’s ties with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Bolton reiterated that there was no substance in Gabbard’s report. “Whether it succeeded in distracting from the Jeffrey Epstein affair, I don’t know,” he remarked. “But there is, in substance, nothing to it and certainly no justification for the Justice Department to launch a criminal investigation," he added.
Gabbard’s infamous report accuses Obama and the former intelligence community of leaking false information to the media using what she claimed was “politicised intelligence” to subvert Trump’s 2016 election victory. The report is based on the investigation conducted by the Republicans in the House of Representatives, and goes against CIA reports that Russia tried to help Trump in 2016.
Quick Reads
View All“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 DNI said in a statement from the White House this week.
“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," the statement further reads.
Soon after the report was released, Democrats, including Obama, accused the Trump administration of trying to use the case 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.
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