President Donald Trump said on Friday that the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity last year would likely shield former President Barack Obama from any prosecution related to the Russiagate hoax.
Trump accused Obama of committing “criminal acts” over the debunked Russian collusion claims that tied Trump’s 2016 election victory to Moscow. The president acknowledges, however, that the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity, which helped Trump in 2024, would likely also protect Obama.
“It probably helps him a lot,” Trump said, adding, “But it doesn’t help the people around him at all.”
“He’s done criminal acts. There’s no question about it,” Trump said. “But he has immunity, and it probably helps him a lot. He owes me big. Obama owes me big.”
Trump correctly says Obama would benefit from the Supreme Court’s presidential powers ruling last year, making it hard to prosecute him for 2016 actions. “Obama owes me big.” pic.twitter.com/XWjsaLUxfx
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) July 25, 2025
Prosecuting Obama appears to be unlikely. Last July, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in favor of Trump, saying that presidential immunity shields him from federal prosecution for official acts. The ruling stemmed from the case against Trump alleging that he plotted to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Trump’s Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, declassified documents last week showing that the Obama administration suppressed intelligence proving that Russia did not influence the outcome of the 2016 election. Gabbard’s revelation led to calls for the Trump administration to prosecute those in the Obama White House, all the way up to the former president himself. Gabbard said declassified documents “clearly show there was a treasonous conspiracy in 2016 committed by officials at the highest level of our government.”
An Obama spokesman called the allegations “ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction.” Gabbard responded, saying, “The intelligence community had one assessment, that Russia did not have the intent or capability to try to impact the outcome of the U.S. election leading up to Election Day,” she continued. “The same assessment was made after Donald Trump was elected by the American people as president in 2016 defeating Hillary Clinton. And it wasn’t until after that pulled president’s daily briefing document that you referenced that the Principals Committee was called and the National Security Council, and President Obama then directed his then DNI, James Clapper, to lead the effort to create this new intelligence community assessment.”
Trump said on Tuesday that Obama, along with other Democrats, should face “severe consequences” for their alleged involvement in the Russian collusion conspiracy, adding that “it’s time to go after people.”
“Barack Hussein Obama is the ringleader. Hillary Clinton was right there with him, and so was Sleepy Joe Biden, and so were the rest of them — [former FBI Director Jim] Comey, Clapper, the whole group. They tried to rig an election, and then they got caught,” Trump said in the Oval Office.
The Department of Justice announced on Wednesday that it formed a “strike force” to evaluate the evidence put forward by Gabbard and look into “potential next steps.”
