Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s director of national intelligence, says that the “Russiagate” documents she released last week prove a “treasonous conspiracy” spearheaded by Barack Obama with the help of Obama’s CIA director John Brennan, his director of national intelligence James Clapper, and his FBI director James Comey. The object of this conspiracy, according to Gabbard, was to gin up a story, knowing it was false, according to which Russia used cyberattacks to help Trump win the 2016 presidential election, and even colluded with the Trump campaign to do so.
As one might expect, MAGA social media has gone off the rails, calling for Obama to be executed, because treason is a capital offense. Meanwhile the legacy media—to the extent they’re covering the story at all—say there’s nothing new in the Gabbard files, and certainly nothing prosecutable.
What does the law have to say about all this?
First, a spoiler: Obama is not guilty of treason. Beyond that, and with the caveat that I’m no intelligence expert, here’s my conclusion: While Gabbard appears to have made some mistakes in the claims she has made, her files do indeed contain startling new information—with serious legal implications.
