From Bipartisan to Lapdog: Graham Pushes Treason Charges Against Obama

Gabbard’s documents prove nothing—but they tell us everything about the MAGA mindset.

Now it’s Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) who wants to investigate President Barack Obama to see if he’s a traitor.

“I’m not alleging he committed treason,” Graham said, “but I am saying it bothers me—it’s disturbing that this is new information.”

Graham is referring to the Obama administration’s response to Russia’s well-documented effort to help Donald Trump win his first term in the 2016 election. In recent weeks, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has released several documents she claims prove that then-President Obama and top officials were out to sabotage Trump’s presidency before it began.

“These documents detail a treasonous conspiracy by officials at the highest levels of the Obama White House to subvert the will of the American people and to try and usurp the President from fulfilling his mandate,” Gabbard said. She called for a Justice Department investigation—and Attorney General Pam Bondi answered by announcing the creation of a special “Strike Force.”

If you only consume pro-Trump media like Fox News, you’d think Gabbard had produced a stack of smoking guns. She insists, “The evidence we’ve found and released directly points to President Obama leading the manufacturing of this intelligence assessment.” She called it “a soft coup.”

Here’s the truth:

President Obama did order an investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election—after a flood of media reports exposed a massive Russian social media campaign to boost Trump’s chances. Given Russia’s status as a major intelligence threat, a probe was inevitable. But Obama also ordered that the investigation remain secret so it wouldn’t influence the election. That’s exactly what happened.

The documents Gabbard released include a previously declassified report by House Republicans—declassified personally by Trump—that questioned some of the Obama administration’s conclusions. It alleged that intelligence officials did not meet “professional criteria” but notably did not allege treason or mention the word “coup.”

That GOP report was followed by bipartisan assessments—including one from the Senate Intelligence Committee—that confirmed the Obama administration’s conclusions. One of the committee’s members? Marco Rubio, now Trump’s Secretary of State.

Gabbard also made public internal Obama administration emails and pages from the President’s Daily Brief. These documents acknowledged that Russia had the capability to interfere with voting systems, and that at least one analyst disagreed with the administration’s assessment. That’s it.

There’s nothing in the material Gabbard released that supports her wild accusations. Serious national security experts—including conservative stalwart and former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton—dismissed her claims outright. “She’s imagined evidence that doesn’t exist,” Bolton said.

Fact-checkers and independent journalists have also torn her case apart. What Gabbard’s campaign actually reveals is how even national security issues—once immune from partisan warfare—have now been sucked into the Trumpian vortex. Even former presidents, once treated with bipartisan respect, are now targets.

Trump abandoned the idea of respect long ago. In 2017, he accused Obama of illegally wiretapping his phones. In 2020, he called it “treason” and said that traitors used to be executed. After Gabbard made her accusations, Trump chimed in again: “Obama was trying to lead a coup.”

Which brings us back to Lindsey Graham.

Graham, believe it or not, was once a vocal Trump critic and a champion of bipartisanship. He called Trump a “jackass” in 2016 and didn’t vote for him. But as Trump consolidated power, Graham fell in line. Now, he jumps every time Trump snaps his fingers.

And this time, he’s jumping in to help distract from the firestorm surrounding the Jeffrey Epstein files, which have dominated headlines all summer. Trump and his allies want to change the subject—and what better way than accusing a former president of treason?

It’s desperation politics at its most grotesque. And Lindsey Graham’s descent from principled conservative to Trump’s lapdog is now complete.