As PJ Media previously reported, the Obama administration manufactured intelligence to create the 2016 Russian election interference narrative, and the conspiracy went all the way to the top.
And by “the top,” that means then-President Barack Obama.
When he spoke to the media on December 16, 2016, a week after receiving a classified intelligence assessment that Russian interference had no impact on the election outcome, Obama stepped before the press to quietly plant the seeds of what would become the Russia collusion hoax. With carefully chosen words and insinuations, he laid the groundwork for Democrats, the media, and the intelligence bureaucracy to spend the next four years undermining a duly elected president.
Asked directly whether “Clinton lost because of the hacking,” Obama didn’t say “no”—he dodged. “I’m gonna let all the political pundits in this town, uh, have a long discussion about, uh, what happened in the election,” he said, feigning detachment.
Then came the bait-and-switch: “We will provide evidence that we can safely provide, that does not compromise sources and methods.”
Translation? Trust us, but don’t expect proof.
And that was the essence of the Obama playbook—demand trust in the narrative, even as no concrete evidence was made public. “If we’re gonna monitor this stuff effectively going forward,” Obama insisted, “we don’t want them to know that we know.” He offered a false binary: either trust the CIA and FBI “many of whom, by the way, served in previous administrations and who are Republicans,” or trust the Russians. “Unless the American people genuinely think that the professionals… are less trustworthy than the Russians, then, uh, people should pay attention to what our intelligence agencies say.”
However, based on prior reports, we know that multiple assessments delivered to the administration found no evidence of Russian manipulation of vote counts or election infrastructure, with a September intelligence report and a subsequent Presidential Daily Briefing on December 8 explicitly stating foreign adversaries could not covertly overturn the vote. According to multiple sources familiar with the December 8 briefing, the intelligence community found no evidence that Russia changed any votes or affected the outcome. Their interference amounted to some phishing emails and propaganda—nothing remotely close to altering the electoral result. Obama knew that, yet he pressed ahead with a narrative designed to delegitimize Trump.
Even more revealing was the moral preening that followed. Obama didn’t just imply that Trump had benefited from Russia; he accused Republicans of embracing foreign adversaries out of partisan spite. “You start to see certain folks in the Republican Party and Republican voters suddenly finding a government and individuals who stand contrary to everything that we stand for as being okay because that’s how much we dislike Democrats,” he said.
It was a sly way of saying: Republicans who support Trump are betraying America.
He drove the point home by alluding to Trump’s campaign rhetoric. “Some of the people who historically have been very critical of me for engaging with the Russians… also endorsed the president-elect, even as he was saying that we should stop sanctioning Russia… and was very complimentary of Mr. Putin personally.”
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It was classic Obama—passive-aggressive, vague, with a twist of plausible deniability. There was no outright accusation, but rather a dark insinuation that Trump was too cozy with Putin and that Republicans were complicit. Political operatives, complicit media outlets, and Obama’s own intelligence holdovers would magnify any hint of treason in the coming months.
And then came the dagger. Asked directly if Putin authorized the hack to help Trump, Obama chose not to confirm that there was no evidence that there even was a hack. “I think what I wanna make sure of is that, um, uh, I give the Intelligence Community the chance to gather all the information,” he said. But then he added, “Not much happens in Russia without Vladimir Putin.” Again, no direct claim—just a loaded suggestion designed to hang over Trump like a cloud.
Obama framed the issue not as foreign interference but as a weakness in America’s political system: “Our vulnerability to Russia… is directly related to how divided, partisan, dysfunctional our political process is.” The implication? Trump and his voters, by being too partisan, were making America more vulnerable to attack. He even equated conservative media with Kremlin propaganda: “If fake news… is almost identical to reports… through partisan news venues… it’s not surprising that foreign propaganda will have a greater effect.”
December 16, 2016. Eight days after Obama received the report that Russia had no effect on the outcome of the election and that Russian election interference was negligible at best.
Watch how Obama carefully lays the groundwork for the Russia hoax.
Reporter: “Did Clinton lose… pic.twitter.com/814Cq7ycwg
— MAZE (@mazemoore) July 20, 2025
This wasn’t a press conference. It was the soft launch of a lie that would consume Washington, cripple a presidency, and erode public trust. Barack Obama didn’t just sit back and let the Russia collusion hoax unfold—he helped plant the seeds.
Even after receiving intelligence assessments that confirmed Russia had no impact on the 2016 election outcome, Obama chose to play politics. He stood before the cameras, dodging direct answers, carefully framing the narrative, and hinting just enough to give the media and the Democrats a green light to pursue this fake story. He knew the facts but encouraged the fiction, knowing full well it would cast a shadow over Trump’s presidency.
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