Black Caucus whip calls on Trump intel chief to resign over Obama smear
Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove is leading a CBC letter calling on DNI Tulsi Gabbard to step down for reviving a debunked conspiracy about Obama and the 2016 Russia investigation.
A member of Congressional Black Caucus leadership has called for President Donald Trump’s top intelligence officer to resign following public claims that the Obama administration manufactured and politicized evidence against Trump regarding Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.
In a letter circulated for signatures exclusively among caucus members, Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.), who serves as the CBC’s whip, rejected Gabbard’s assertion and argued that she has politicized her role, undermined public trust and promoted a conspiracy theory previously debunked by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, then led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The members also criticize her for deflecting attention from the Trump administration’s refusal to release records related to Jeffrey Epstein. The letter concludes that Gabbard’s continued leadership threatens the credibility of the Intelligence Community and calls for her immediate resignation.
Kamlager-Dove’s demand comes a day after Gabbard confirmed during Wednesday afternoon’s White House press briefing that she had referred former President Barack Obama and other Obama-era officials to the Justice Department and FBI for potential criminal prosecution. While supporters of Gabbard and President Trump have seized on this referral as a basis for legal action, critics argue the claims lack merit.
“Tulsi Gabbard is full of shit,” Kamlager-Dove told me in a brief interview on Wednesday. “I guess when the stakes are so high because your boss has been told that they’re in the files, you do a Hail Mary, and that is to concoct these cockamamie allegations about President Obama.”
She added she was intentional about circulating the letter among CBC members first because Obama was the nation’s first Black president and previously served in the Senate. He is also a former member of the CBC.
“He really showed people what an administration of integrity looks like,” Kamlager-Dove said. “And what bullies do is they go after the ones that no one else will go after. Bullies try to take down the big fish. So Obama is considered a big fish in the pantheon of Democratic presidents.”
Twenty-two members, including the CBC’s entire executive board, have signed on to the letter.
President Trump has long promoted the false claim that Obama and his administration weaponized intelligence to undermine his 2016 campaign by fabricating ties to Russia. The Senate Intel investigation confirmed that Russia interfered in the election to help Trump but found no evidence that votes were altered or that the intelligence community acted improperly.
Nearly a decade later, Gabbard is breathing new life into the conspiracy. In a document released on July 18, Gabbard alleged that the Obama administration manufactured and politicized evidence against Trump, language that mirrors Trump’s rhetoric and departs sharply from the nonpartisan role traditionally held by the nation’s top intelligence official. The release has reignited tensions within the intelligence community and drawn swift backlash from congressional Democrats, including House leadership.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) dismissed Gabbard’s actions on Wednesday morning as a political stunt designed to curry favor with Trump and deflect attention from GOP-led policy failures.
“Is this what we’re doing?” he said, pivoting quickly to criticize Republican efforts to slash funding for health care, nutrition assistance and veterans’ services under the recently passed reconciliation bill. “When you have nothing to present that’s affirmative to the American people, Republicans blame Barack Obama. It’s laughable.”
House Minority Whip Katherine Clark also accused Gabbard of prioritizing loyalty to Trump over the needs of struggling families.
“The American people are waving their arms and saying, ‘We aren’t making it in this country,and everything the GOP is doing is making it worse,’” Clark said. “They are the ones that pay the price for these lies and for this fidelity not to the people of the United States, but to one person.”
Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) linked Gabbard’s declassification to Trump’s continued efforts to evade scrutiny over his administration’s refusal to release Epstein-related records.
“As only a distraction to more Jeffrey Epstein questions, Tulsi Gabbard throws a bone to Donald Trump,” Aguilar said, adding that the gesture comes after she was sidelined from key national security briefings earlier in the year. “It’s been nine-and-a half-years since Barack Obama was in the White House. Every other effort is just a distraction by Donald Trump to blame someone else.”
Even the office of the former president felt the need to respond.
In a statement this week, Obama spokesperson Patrick Rodenbush dismissed the allegations in a similar fashion to House Democratic leaders, calling them a baseless distraction. While the office typically refrains from commenting on “constant nonsense and misinformation,” Rodenbush said the claims were egregious enough to merit a public response.
“Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes.”