President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that Democrats, such as former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, along with former Secretary of State and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, should face “severe consequences” for their alleged involvement in the Russian collusion conspiracy.

Trump commented on the bombshell documents released last week by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, telling reporters in the Oval Office that Gabbard “caught President Obama absolutely cold.” On Sunday, the Department of Justice reportedly received a criminal referral from Gabbard over the allegations against Obama administration officials.

“They tried to rig the election and they got caught — and there should be very severe consequences for that,” Trump said.

.@POTUS: "The witch hunt that you should be talking about is they caught President Obama absolutely cold … They tried to rig the election and they got caught — and there should be very severe consequences for that." pic.twitter.com/tNLz91Xp6T

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) July 22, 2025

Documents declassified by Gabbard last week showed that the Obama administration suppressed intelligence proving that Russia did not influence the outcome of the 2016 election. For the entirety of Trump’s first term in office, Democrats and the legacy media pointed to the intelligence compiled by the Obama administration to connect Trump’s election victory to the Russian government.

The president accused Obama of being the “ringleader” of those who put forward the false narrative that Russia colluded with the Trump campaign to rig the 2016 election in Trump’s favor.

“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, [former Director of National Intelligence James] Clapper, the whole group. They tried to rig an election, and then they got caught.”

.@POTUS: "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 — Comey, Clapper, the whole group. They tired to rig an election and then they got caught." pic.twitter.com/zf2GqE3Dox

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) July 22, 2025

Trump said that during his first term, he decided not to pursue criminal charges against his political rival, Clinton, but added that the latest revelations are too big to ignore.

“I let her off the hook, and I’m very happy I did, but after what they did to me, and whether it’s right or wrong, it’s time to go after people,” he added.

Gabbard said the information released last week “clearly shows there was a treasonous conspiracy in 2016 committed by officials at the highest level of our government.”

“Their goal was to subvert the will of the American people and enact what was essentially a years-long coup with the objective of trying to usurp the President from fulfilling the mandate bestowed upon him by the American people,” she added.

Conservatives have called for the DOJ to arrest former government officials who were involved in pushing the Russia conspiracy.

A dual citizen of China and the United States pled guilty on Monday to stealing American missile defense technology for the Chinese government. 

The Justice Department announced that 59-year-old Chenguang Gong pled guilty to theft of trade secrets. Gong, a former engineer who lives in San Jose, California, admitted to stealing information developed by the U.S. government for detecting nuclear missile launches, tracking ballistic and hypersonic missiles, and technology to assist fighter jets evade heat-seeking missiles. 

Gong, who faces up to 10 years in prison upon sentencing, is currently free on $1.75 million bond. 

In his plea agreement, Gong said that he transferred 3,600 files from the Los Angeles area research and development company where he worked and moved them to personal storage devices, including a personal laptop. The file transfers took place between March 2023 and April 2023, when he was fired by the company, which was identified as a victim of Gong.

The files contained blueprints for infrared sensors designed for use in space-based systems to detect missiles and blueprints for sensors for American military aircraft to combat heat-seeking missiles. Some of the files were later discovered at Gong’s private residence, the Justice Department said. 

The information on the files was worth hundreds of millions of dollars, according to prosecutors.

From 2014 to 2022, Gong applied for multiple “talent programs” run by the Chinese government while working for major American technology companies.  

The Justice Department said that China “established these talent programs as a means to identify individuals who have expert skills, abilities, and knowledge of advanced sciences and technologies in order to access and utilize those skills and knowledge in transforming the PRC’s economy, including its military capabilities.”

Gong sent in applications to the talent programs that mirrored technology produced by his employers. For example, in September 2020, Gong submitted an application for “low light/night vision” image sensors that had the model number of a sensor produced by a defense industry company he worked for from 2015-2019, according to investigators. 

The Justice Department also said that Gong took several trips to China to meet with talent program managers. In a 2019 email, Gong admitted that he “took a risk” to fly to China “because [he] worked for…an American military industry company.”

The guilty plea comes as government officials have attempted to crack down on intellectual property theft by China. It is estimated that Chinese-backed IP theft costs American companies between $300 to $600 billion per year.