Obama Prosecution: Grand Jury, Immunity, and the Comey-Brennan Cases

A federal grand jury investigation into whether former President Barack Obama and senior Obama administration officials committed crimes related to the 2017 intelligence assessment on Russian election interference is open, but as of mid-2026 no charges have been filed against Obama or the senior officials named by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. Attorney General Pam Bondi directed the probe in August 2025 after Gabbard made criminal referrals accusing Obama’s national security team of a “treasonous conspiracy.” Legal analysts widely view a prosecution of Obama himself as improbable, largely because of the Supreme Court’s 2024 presidential immunity ruling.¹

What Bondi Ordered

On August 4, 2025, Bondi directed an unnamed federal prosecutor to present evidence to a grand jury and seek potential indictments of Obama administration officials in connection with the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment on Russian interference. Her letter did not specify the potential charges, name the individuals being targeted, or identify where the grand jury would sit. Officials told NBC News there was no established timetable and that the process could take months to begin.¹

The grand jury step followed a Justice Department “strike force” that had been assembled in June 2025 to assess the claims and evaluate potential legal consequences.² By late 2025, Bondi was signaling publicly that the broader “weaponization” investigation covering the Obama and Biden administrations could “come to a head in 2026.”³

What Triggered the Investigation

The probe grew out of Executive Order 14152, which Trump signed on January 20, 2025. The order directed the DNI to investigate alleged “inappropriate activity” within the intelligence community related to domestic elections.⁴ Gabbard tasked a new unit, the Director’s Initiatives Group, with examining the alleged “weaponization” of the IC.⁵

On July 18, 2025, Gabbard released 114 pages of declassified documents, including a 2017 House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence oversight report that was formally declassified on July 22, 2025.⁶ Her central allegation: Obama, along with former DNI James Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan, and former FBI Director James Comey, manufactured the January 2017 ICA, which concluded that Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign aimed at helping Trump win. Gabbard called it a “contrived false narrative” and the beginning of a “years-long coup.”⁷

Why the Core Claim Is Contested

A key problem with Gabbard’s argument involves two different intelligence questions being treated as one. She cited September 2016 emails in which analysts assessed that Russia was “probably not trying” to influence the election “by using cyber means to manipulate computer-enabled election infrastructure,” and framed the January 2017 ICA as a reversal. Fact-checkers and former officials have pointed out that the earlier assessments addressed whether Russia could hack voting machines and alter vote tallies, while the ICA addressed a separate question: whether Russia conducted an influence campaign through social media operations and the hacking and release of Democratic National Committee emails.⁸ The declassified emails themselves say there was “no indication of a Russian threat to directly manipulate the actual vote count through cyber means,” which is consistent with the later finding of a broader influence campaign rather than contradictory to it.⁹

The BBC reported that the declassified HPSCI report contained “little evidence” challenging the broader intelligence community consensus that Russia sought to influence the 2016 election in Trump’s favor. A spokesperson for Obama said nothing in the released information “undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election.”¹⁰

The Immunity Problem for Prosecuting Obama

Any attempt to indict Obama himself runs into the Supreme Court’s 2024 ruling in Trump v. United States. The Court held that a former president has absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for acts within the “exclusive sphere of constitutional authority” and at least presumptive immunity for other official acts within the “outer perimeter” of presidential responsibility. Overcoming presumptive immunity requires prosecutors to show that applying a criminal prohibition would pose no danger of intruding on executive branch authority.¹¹

Ordering an intelligence assessment of foreign election interference falls squarely within a president’s core duties. One analysis described the DOJ as holding a “weak legal position” trying to argue otherwise.² The ruling also bars prosecutors from using testimony or records of presidential advisers that would probe immune official conduct, which would strip out much of the evidence any case against Obama would depend on.¹¹ Legal scholar Darryl K. Brown of the University of Virginia noted that the ruling established an “exceptionally strong conception of unitary executive power,” on top of practical barriers to prosecuting a former president that were already substantial.¹²

The Trump administration has not publicly articulated a legal theory for how it would overcome that barrier.

Officials Who Are Facing Legal Action

While Obama has not been charged, two of the officials Gabbard named have faced DOJ action.

James Comey

In September 2025, the DOJ charged Comey with lying to Congress about press leaks. The indictment came three days after Lindsey Halligan was sworn in as acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, replacing Erik Siebert, who had been forced to resign after refusing to pursue charges. Federal prosecutors had reportedly recommended against charging Comey after a five-month investigation found insufficient evidence of a federal crime. Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats alleged the indictment resulted from “immense pressure from the White House” and a DOJ “Weaponization Working Group.”¹³ A federal judge dismissed the case in late 2025, ruling that the acting U.S. Attorney had been improperly appointed.

In April 2026, a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of North Carolina indicted Comey again, this time on charges of making and transmitting a threat against the president. The charges stemmed from a social media post in which Comey shared a photograph of seashells arranged to spell “86 47,” which the administration interpreted as a threat against the 47th president. An arrest warrant was issued and Comey was expected to self-surrender.¹⁴

John Brennan

On October 21, 2025, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan formally referred Brennan to the DOJ for criminal prosecution, asking for an investigation into whether Brennan’s May 2023 testimony before the committee violated 18 U.S.C. § 1001, the federal statute prohibiting knowingly false statements to Congress. Jordan alleged that Brennan falsely testified the CIA was not involved with and was opposed to including the Steele dossier in the ICA, while declassified documents and internal CIA memoranda purportedly showed Brennan had personally insisted on its inclusion over the objections of agency professionals.¹⁵ As of mid-2026, the FBI has been questioning CIA officers as part of a probe connected to Brennan and the 2017 ICA, but no formal charges have been filed against him.¹⁶

What Earlier Investigations Found

The ground Bondi’s grand jury is now covering has been examined before. Those earlier reviews did not find a criminal conspiracy among Obama officials.

The bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, which was led by Republicans, published a five-volume report on Russian interference. Its fifth volume, released in 2020, concluded that the Russian government engaged in an “aggressive, multi-faceted effort” to influence the election, that Putin ordered operations to “harm the Clinton Campaign” and “help the Trump Campaign,” and that WikiLeaks “actively sought, and played, a key role in the Russian influence effort.” The committee also found that Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort shared internal campaign information with Konstantin Kilimnik, whom the committee identified as a Russian intelligence officer.¹⁷

Special Counsel John Durham, appointed during Trump’s first term to investigate the origins of the Russia probe, conducted a three-year investigation that ended in 2023. According to NBC News reporting, Durham found no criminal conspiracy among Obama administration officials to fabricate intelligence and brought no charges against any intelligence officer involved in the 2017 assessment.¹ Durham’s report did conclude that the FBI lacked adequate grounds to open the Crossfire Hurricane investigation and that an FBI lawyer fabricated evidence in a surveillance application targeting former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.¹⁸

A separate review by the Justice Department’s inspector general found that Crossfire Hurricane was opened in compliance with department policy and uncovered no evidence of political bias in the decision to open it, while identifying significant problems with the FBI’s FISA applications on Carter Page.¹⁹

Reactions to the Grand Jury

Former senior Justice Department officials called the investigation “a dangerous political stunt,” and a former senior national security official told NBC News that “there’s no logical, rational basis for this.”¹ Elie Honig, a former federal prosecutor and CNN legal analyst, said he could not identify “where the criminal theory comes in at all.”²⁰ Steven Cash, a former prosecutor and intelligence official, called the effort “profoundly concerning” and a “hallmark of autocratic regimes.”²¹

Brennan and Clapper responded in a New York Times opinion piece, writing that the allegations were “patently false” and that the administration sought “to rewrite history.”²¹ Obama’s office called the accusations “bizarre,” “ridiculous,” and “a weak attempt at distraction.”²²

Current CIA Director John Ratcliffe publicly supported the probe, calling the original intelligence assessments a “hoax” and a “fraud on the American people.” President Trump said he “had nothing to do with the directive” but expressed support, saying, “They deserve it. I was happy to hear it.”²¹

Where It Stands

As of mid-2026, the grand jury investigation remains open. No indictments have been returned against Obama or the senior officials Gabbard named. Comey faces active criminal charges on the threat allegation in North Carolina after his earlier false-statements case was dismissed. Brennan’s matter sits at the referral stage, with the FBI continuing to interview CIA officers. The presidential immunity framework from Trump v. United States remains the dominant legal obstacle to any prosecution of Obama for acts taken in office, and the administration has not publicly offered a theory for getting around it.

1
NBC News. Pam Bondi Orders Grand Jury Probe Into Obama Admin Review of 2016 Election
2
Al Jazeera. Can Barack Obama Be Prosecuted Over Russian Interference Intelligence
3
Washington Examiner. Pam Bondi Signals Obama-Biden Era Conspiracy Case
4
Federal Register. Executive Order 14152
5
Office of the Director of National Intelligence. DIG: Obama Conspiracy to Subvert President Trump Victory
6
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Declassified HPSCI Report on the Intelligence Community Assessment
7
Office of the Director of National Intelligence. DNI Press Release on Declassified Evidence
8
FactCheck.org. Gabbard’s Misleading Coup Claim
9
Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Declassified Evidence Documents
10
BBC. Declassified Report on Russia’s Election Interference
11
Supreme Court of the United States. Trump v. United States
12
University of Virginia School of Law. The Rationale and Implications of Presidential Immunity in Trump v. United States
13
U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. Durbin and Senate Judiciary Democrats Demand Answers
14
CNN. Justice Department Indicts Ex-FBI Director James Comey Again
15
House Judiciary Committee. House Judiciary Committee Refers John Brennan to DOJ for Criminal Prosecution
16
Reuters. FBI Questions CIA Officers Over Russia Assessment in Brennan Probe
17
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities
18
House Republican Conference. Durham Report Key Findings
19
U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Crossfire Hurricane Hearing
20
Salon. Legal Expert Dismisses Pam Bondi’s Obama Grand Jury
21
PBS NewsHour. Former Prosecutor Questions Legitimacy of Bondi’s Russia Probe
22
Washington Post. Obama Response to Trump Treason Claims