Weaponized Accusations Hollow Claims
Over the past months, Donald Trump, Tulsi Gabbard, and other government officials have escalated a new wave of misleading rhetoric—amplified by pro-Trump media figures. In public appearances and social media posts, they’ve begun describing the Russia investigation and Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) assessing Russian activities and intentions in U.S. elections not merely as a political attack but as a full-blown “coup attempt” orchestrated by former President Barack Obama and his national security team.
The Real Purpose: Narrative Warfare
These “coup” claims are not about accountability. They are political weapons—designed to inflame, to delegitimize oversight, and to erode trust in our democratic institutions. They rely on emotion and repetition, not facts. They keep loyalists angry and primed for confrontation. The evidence hasn’t changed, and it’s still there for anyone willing to look at it. Yet, Trump and Gabbard keep the lie alive to arm themselves with a ready-made narrative grenade. Whenever useful, they can–and will– pull the pin, hurl it into public discourse, and watch it explode across social media and partisan media outlets.
They were never victims of a coup–they are architects of a storyline designed to invert reality. The “Obama coup” is projection in its purest form, accusing the other side of the very anti-democratic impulses they seek to normalize for themselves. By branding their opponents as traitors, they can create a moral cover to take extreme action in the name of “saving democracy.” By keeping their narrative alive, they are doing more than rewriting history; they are prepping the ground for the next time they decide the voters got it wrong.
The Unsubstantiated Accusations
On July 22, 2025, Trump declared: “It’s time to go after people. Obama’s been caught directly…He’s guilty… This was treason.” He repeated his longstanding framing of the “Russia hoax” narrative as part of what he termed “the greatest political crime” in U.S. history.” On July 31, 2025, he posted to Truth Social a meme which stated, “IT’S TIME TO INDICT OBAMA THE TRAITOR FOR TREASON.” Gabbard stated in a social media post on July 18 that “Americans will finally learn the truth about how in 2016, intelligence was politicized and weaponized by the most powerful people in the Obama Administration to lay the groundwork for what was essentially a years-long coup” against President Trump. Days later, she released a September 2020 House Intelligence Committee majority report claiming “CIA Director Brennan and the IC mischaracterized intelligence and relied on dubious, “substandard” sources to create a contrived false narrative that Putin developed “a clear preference” for Trump.” On July 30, 2025, Gabbard issued a press release announcing the release of new documents providing firsthand account of an Intelligence Community Whistleblower’s “relentless efforts to expose the egregious manipulation and manufacturing of intelligence.”
Pro-Trump media have taken it further. On Real America’s Voice, Eric Bolling asked Senator Ron Johnson about sending Obama, Hillary Clinton, and others to Guantanamo Bay. While Johnson did not explicitly endorse the proposal, he responded that it had been “referred…let’s hope they prosecute.”
It should alarm every American when the sitting President accuses a former President of treason–one of the gravest crimes in our Constitution. He offers no evidence for this accusation and his statements allow the inference that due process is irrelevant. He suggests that he alone can decide guilt. And let’s be clear: treason is a capital offense. Federal law states, “Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort… is guilty of treason and shall suffer death.”
The Verified, Substantiated Investigation Findings
The core accusation: Obama-era officials—Brennan, James Comey, James Clapper, and Obama himself—fabricated the Trump–Russia collusion narrative to stop Trump’s election or remove him from office.
Every major official review—many launched under Trump—found otherwise. A
bipartisan investigation completed in 2020 by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), chaired by Republicans, including Senator Marco Rubio, concluded the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) presented “a coherent and well-constructed intelligence basis for the case of unprecedented Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.” Additionally, the report emphasizes that interviews of those who drafted and prepared the assessment consistently showed that analysts “were under no politically motivated pressure to reach specific conclusions.” Further, the report states that “The Committee found that the ICA provides a proper representation of the intelligence collected by CIA, NSA, and FBI on Russian interference in 2016, and this body of evidence supports the substance and judgments of the ICA.”
In 2017, Trump’s own Justice Department appointed a Special Counsel to investigate the origins of the Russia probe, and in 2019, DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz conducted a review in response to requests from the Attorney General Jeff Sessions and members of Congress. The DOJ Office of Inspector General (OIG) concluded that the FBI had a legitimate basis under long-standing FBI regulations to open its investigation titled Crossfire Hurricane—into potential links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. While Horowitz criticized the FBI for significant procedural failures, particularly in its FISA surveillance of Carter Page, he found no evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the opening or continuation of the investigation.
Then came Special Counsel John Durham, who was handpicked by Attorney General Bill Barr to uncover wrongdoing. Durham had full access to classified intelligence and investigative files. After nearly four years, Durham’s inquiry led only to one guilty plea (from former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith for altering an email), after trial for two individuals charged, Michael Sussman and Igor Danchenko, both of whom were acquitted. Ultimately, his investigation found no evidence of a criminal conspiracy. Though Durham criticized the FBI’s judgment, he notably did not accuse Brennan, Obama, or anyone else of misconduct—let alone of orchestrating a coup.
Weaponized Disinformation Through Political Projection
Trump and Gabbard’s narrative is not just unproven—it is directly contradicted by the multiple investigations noted above, including those launched under Trump’s own administration.
Trump, Gabbard, and others continue to claim they have uncovered “new evidence” undermining the official record. The latest example is the July 30, 2025 release of a declassified whistleblower statement promoted by Gabbard. In it, a former Deputy National Intelligence Officer describes being actively pressured “to accept the 2017 ICA’s judgement of a decisive Russian preference for then President-elect Trump” and states, “I could not concur in good conscience based on information available, and my professional analytic judgement.” The whistleblower further alleges that broader context and dissenting perspectives were omitted from the ICA’s unclassified and classified versions, and, according to their own account, they attempted to alert both the Intelligence Community Inspector General and Special Counsel Durham about their concerns during and after the relevant period. While such allegations may warrant follow-up, they do not materially alter the well-substantiated, bipartisan conclusions already reached by Trump’s own Department of Justice, Inspector General, Special Counsel, and the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee. In persisting with these accusations, Trump and Gabbard are not exposing politicization; they are engaging in it, projecting onto others the very conduct they are attempting to normalize.
If There Was a Coup, Why Didn’t Trump Act?
If Obama committed treason, Trump had four years of complete control over the Justice Department and Intelligence Community to prove it. Brennan, Comey, and others were private citizens. If there was evidence, they could have been charged.
They weren’t.
Trump’s administration conducted multiple investigations, declassified selective intelligence, and still found no evidence of a coup. The real danger is not that a coup will be proven—but that enough people will believe there was one– in order to justify a real coup during the next election.
Founded in 2016, The Steady State is a nonpartisan, nonprofit 501(c)(4) organization of more than 300 former senior national security professionals. Our membership includes former officials from the CIA, FBI, Department of State, Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security. Drawing on deep expertise across national security disciplines including intelligence, diplomacy, military affairs and law, we advocate for constitutional democracy, the rule of law and the preservation of America’s national security institutions.