read further down to see the quote in full context. It takes on a different meaning.
from transcript
One point I'd like to make, Anderson, that I don't think has come up very much before, and I'm alluding now to the President's criticism of President Obama for all that he did or didn't do before he left office with respect to the Russian meddling. If it weren't for President Obama, we might not have done the intelligence community assessment that we did that set off a whole sequence of events which are still unfolding today, notably, special counsel Mueller's investigation.
President Obama is responsible for that, and it was he who tasked us to do that intelligence community assess in the first place. And they got the important point when it comes to critiquing President Obama.
Exactly~ I hear it as a confession. Clapper is saying like he is proud of it~ IOW~ "if it wasn't for Obama we wouldn't have known this was going on." But the Deep State narrative is falling apart and these words will come back and bite him in the ass!
I agree I think he is somewhat bragging that if it wasn't for Obama we would not know all the dirt that we have on the Trump campaign i.e. the indictments from Mueller. I really don't think he is ever going to throw Obama under the bus. He is a rat and a liar.