Barack Obama's office issued a statement forcefully rejecting Donald Trump's claims that Obama attempted a "coup" following the 2016 election. Trump accused Obama of "treason" and claimed he "tried to lead a coup" by manufacturing evidence of Russian interference. The statement from Obama's office called Trump's allegations "outrageous" and a "weak attempt at distraction," emphasizing that the widely accepted conclusion of Russian interference in the election remains unchanged, citing a 2020 bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report led by Marco Rubio. The statement also criticized an 11-page document released by Tulsi Gabbard that made similar accusations.

Trump's accusations followed Gabbard's document which alleged a "treasonous conspiracy" among Obama national security officials. Trump stated that based on the document, Obama should be the main target of a criminal investigation, referring to Obama as the "leader of the gang" and describing the actions as "treason." Trump also claimed Gabbard had "thousands of additional documents coming".

The Gabbard report, however, conflated and misrepresented various issues to undermine the intelligence community's assessment of Russian interference in the 2016 election. Experts such as former CIA analyst Fulton Armstrong criticized the report's methodology and conclusions as "sloppy" and "manipulative," stating it was "obviously written with a pre-ordained conclusion." The report's assertions are contradicted by the findings of both the Mueller investigation (2019) and the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report (2020).