News Reporter: Fact Checker: Gabbard’s claim of a ‘treasonous conspiracy’ by Obama falls apart

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The truth behind the rhetoric.

By Glenn Kessler

With fanfare, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard last Friday released alleged evidence of what she called a "treasonous conspiracy in 2016 committed by officials at the highest level of our government" — namely the intelligence community's conclusion in early 2017 that Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to interfere in the 2016 presidential election on behalf of Donald Trump.

The president has embraced her findings — which she said would be referred for criminal prosecution — and even tweeted an AI-generated video of Barack Obama being arrested.

But Gabbard has a problem. How can she discover new evidence that somehow eluded four previous investigations: a 2019 report released by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III; a 2019 Justice Department inspector general report; a bipartisan report by the Senate Intelligence Committee issued in 2020 by a GOP-controlled Senate; and a 2023 report released by special counsel John Durham, appointed in Trump's first term?

All told, the previous reports add up to about 2,500 pages of dense prose, compared with the thin gruel of emails and meeting agendas released by Gabbard. As a reader service, we showed some of the tricks Gabbard used to ignore or dismiss the findings of the previous reports.

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The 5 fact checks you've most wanted to read so far in 2025

The Trump administration dominates the headlines, and it's no surprise that the most-read fact checks so far all concern claims made by the president or his aides. Here's a rundown of our top five fact checks. Click the link in the headlines to read the full fact check.

· Vance's whopper on alleged Social Security fraud

· Trump launched air controller diversity program that he now decries

· The false things Trump said about tariffs during his announcement

· The White House's wildly inaccurate claims about USAID spending

· Fact-checking 26 suspect claims in Trump's address to Congress

We're always looking for fact-check suggestions.

You can reach us via email, Twitter (@GlennKesslerWP and @AdriUsero) or Facebook. We're also on TikTok. Read about our process and rating scale here, and sign up for the newsletter here.