President Donald J. Trump suggested Friday that former President Barack Obama likely has immunity from any potential crimes he committed while in office—and therefore, as Trump put it, “owes me big.” The remark came as Trump renewed his demand for a criminal investigation into Obama’s alleged involvement in what he calls the “Russiagate hoax.”
“He’s done criminal acts, there’s no question about it,” Trump said Friday. “But he has immunity, and it probably helps him a lot… he owes me big, Obama owes me big.”
Trump’s sharp comments follow a string of revelations and renewed scrutiny over the origins of the now-debunked Trump-Russia collusion narrative.
Earlier in the week, Trump had called Obama the “ringleader” behind the effort, citing declassified intelligence suggesting the Obama administration manipulated findings to manufacture a damaging narrative.
A spokesperson for Obama dismissed the renewed scrutiny, calling Trump’s accusations “bizarre” and “a weak attempt at distraction.”
But Trump’s claims find some backing in the record. A 2020 report prepared by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, based on an investigation led by then-Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), exposed troubling irregularities in the Intelligence Community’s 2017 assessment of Russian election interference.
The findings were declassified by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
That report concluded that the intelligence product—a rush-job crafted by just five CIA analysts—was heavily influenced by political pressure.
The final draft was completed just two weeks before Trump’s inauguration and was pushed through under what the report described as “unusual directives from the President and senior political appointees.”
According to the committee, the CIA, under then-Director John Brennan, pushed for inclusion of the now-discredited Steele dossier—largely sourced from “internet rumor”—despite knowing its dubious origins.
The report concluded the assessment was not properly vetted within the intelligence community and was published without substantial internal challenge.
“There are a lot of deep state actors still here within Washington,” Gabbard said Wednesday during an appearance on Jesse Watters Primetime. “President Trump wants us to find the truth. I want to find that truth. The American people deserve the truth, and they deserve accountability.”
The Obama camp’s response was swift, though notably vague. “These bizarre allegations are ridiculous,” Obama spokesman Patrick Rodenbush said, adding, “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.”
That may be technically accurate—but critics argue it misses the point. While Russia may have attempted interference, the House report suggests the intelligence community’s assessment was deliberately slanted to suggest a Trump-Putin connection that lacked substantiating evidence.
Trump, never one to shy from controversy, now says the Supreme Court’s affirmation of presidential immunity may shield Obama from prosecution—but that doesn’t change the facts. “It probably helps him a lot,” Trump said. “But it doesn’t help the people around him at all.”
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