Last July, then US Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the formation of a “strike force” to investigate former president Barack Obama and members of his administration, based on claims from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard of a “treasonous conspiracy” to prevent the election of Donald Trump in 2016.
The alleged conspiracy involved falsifying intelligence findings to support claims that the Russian regime assisted, and possibly controlled, Trump.
Nearly a year later, no charges seem to have been filed regarding the “treasonous conspiracy,” unless we count the indictment of former FBI director James Comey for the crime of publishing a photo of seashells on the Internet, but Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh wonders (at his Substack) “Is Trump’s Justice Department Pursuing Obama” himself?
My read of Hersh’s piece suggests that the long arm of the law won’t extend that far, although others (such as former CIA director John Brennan) may end up fighting criminal charges.
That’s my prediction as well, and I consider it unfortunate. I’d love to see Barack Obama charged with, tried for, and convicted of crimes that we know beyond a shadow of a doubt he’s guilty of. For example:
Obama ordered the murders of at least two American citizens, Anwar al-Awlaki and his son, Abdulrahman Anwar al-Awlaki (Donald Trump later ordered the murder of eight-year-old Nawar Anwar al-Awlaki, also a US citizen).
Obama also illegally took the US to war in Libya, never even seeking the constitutionally required declaration of war.
For those crimes, and many others, I’d very much like to see Obama face legal consequences.
But there’s a problem with the idea:
In 2024, the US Supreme Court ruled that presidents — in the particular case, Donald Trump — enjoy substantial immunity for their “official acts” despite the US Constitution neither saying nor implying any such immunity.
The “official acts” at issue involved Trump’s attempt to rig the 2020 presidential election, in ways far less obviously “official” than those cited in the Obama investigation.
And Trump has since attempted to stretch the definition of “official acts” enjoying immunity to cover such things as unrelatd to the presidency per se as defaming a woman he sexually assaulted, the assault having occurred when he wasn’t even president.
A successful prosecution of Obama himself for the actions laid out in the “treasonous conspiracy” claims would irrefutably place a number of Trump’s own acts outside the “official acts” protection awarded by SCOTUS.
Since Trump probably doesn’t want to go to prison, it seems unlikely that he’ll try very hard to send Obama there either.
Obama’s underlings may take a fall … unless Obama says he pardoned them just by thinking about it, in much the same way that Trump declassified secret documents he was unsuccessfully prosecuted for stealing. But Obama himself will likely live out his life in freedom despite his crimes.
It’s a shame, really. All living American presidents, current and former, should be wearing orange jumpsuits and leg irons right now, and the dead ones should faced the music too.
Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.
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