Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt: Over the past few days, Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has unveiled shocking new evidence that former President Barack Obama, and top aids in the Obama administration, conspired to subvert President Trump's 2016 election victory, and undermine the democratic will of the American people. While publicly pretending to engage in a peaceful transfer of power, in private, former President Obama went to great and nefarious lengths to try to sow discord among the public, and sabotage his successor, President trump. The new evidence released by the Direct of National Intelligence confirms that the Obama administration manufactured politicized intelligence, which was later used as a justification for baseless smears against President Trump in an effort to try to delegitimize his victory before he even took the oath of office.
Director Gabbard [White House press conference]: There is irrefutable evidence that detail how President Obama and his national security team directed the creation of an intelligence community assessment that they knew was false. They knew it would promote this contrived narrative that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help President Trump win, selling it to the American people as though it were true. It wasn't. The report that we released today shows in great detail how they carried this out. They manufactured findings from shoddy sources. They suppressed evidence and credible intelligence that disproved their false claims. They disobeyed tradition tradecraft intelligence community standards, and withheld the truth from the American people. In doing so, they conspired to subvert the will of the American people who elected Donald Trump in that election of November of 2016. They worked with their partners in the media to promote this lie, ultimately to undermine the legitimacy of President Trump, and launching what would be a years-long coup against him and his administration.
Director Gabbard: The intelligence committee oversight report reveals that CIA Director Brennan overruled senior CIA officers that challenged the Obama-ordered assessment.
Director Gabbard: President Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, and others, including their mouthpieces in the media, knowingly lied as they repeated the contrived narrative that was created in this January 2017 intelligence community assessment with high confidence, as though it were fact.
Reporter: Do you believe that any of this new information implicated former President Obama in criminal behavior?
Director Gabbard: I've referred, and will continue to refer, all of these documents to the Department of Justice and the FBI, to investigate the criminal implications of this. The evidence that we have found, and that we have released, directly point to President Obama leading the manufacturing of this intelligence assessment.
Reporter: Do you believe President Obama is guilty of treason?
Director Gabbard: I'm leaving the criminal charges to the Department of Justice. I am not an attorney. But as I've said previously, when you look at the intent behind creating a fake, manufactured intelligence document, that directly contradicts multiple assessments that were created by the intelligence community, the expressed intent, and what followed afterward, can only be described as a years long coup, and a treasonous conspiracy against the American people, our Republic, and an attempt to undermine President Trump's administration.
Director Gabbard: Russia has took action to try to sow discord in the election, but showed no preference for or against any singular candidate.
Director Gabbard: They [Russia] specifically withheld what they had on her [Clinton], the most damning information, because they thought that she would win the election. They had plans to release it just prior to her inauguration to, again, sow discord and chaos in America.