Statute of limitations rules likely won’t come into play when it comes to potential charges against former President Barack Obama and key members of his intelligence community when it comes to allegations that they conspired to undermine President Donald Trump’s first term in office with claims of Russian collusion, CIA Director John Ratcliffe said Sunday.
“I don’t think statutes of limitations are going to impact because in the conspiracy, the statute of limitation doesn’t start to run until the last act and furtherance of that conspiracy,” Ratcliffe told Fox News “Sunday Morning Futures” host Maria Bartiromo. “Part of why this is so important is that the people behind this are still furthering the conspiracy. They’re refusing to admit or acknowledge what they did in 2016 and what they did in 2020 was wrong.”
And, he added that there is “no doubt in my mind” that Obama, and his CIA Director John Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, FBI Director James Comey, and others conspired against Trump and the American people.
“I’ll leave it to Pam Bondi and our Department of Justice, and Kash Patel and our FBI, to investigate the conspiracy and what charges that they’re capable of bringing,” Ratcliffe said.
Meanwhile, Ratcliffe explained that the origins of the Russian collusion claims began back in the summer of 2016, when U.S. intelligence “intercepted Russian intelligence talking about a Hillary Clinton plan to falsely accuse Donald Trump of Russia collusion, to vilify him and smear him with what would become known infamously as the Steele dossier.”
Brennan then briefed Obama, Comey, then-Vice President Joe Biden, and the national security team, said Ratcliffe.
“It wasn’t until more than four years later, in October of 2020, when I found, after an exhaustive search of John Brennan’s handwritten notes and the underlying intelligence behind it, that it revealed exactly what happened,” he continued.
That meant for four years, “the truth about the origins of the Russia collusion hoax was hidden from the American people,” said Ratcliffe.
But then, with Biden’s election in 2020, that gave “another four years to be able to continue to be able to bury the truth,” he added.
“It’s only now with Donald Trump having been reelected that through DNI [Tulsi] Gabbard, myself, Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, all of this intelligence, all of this evidence that’s been hidden and buried from the American people is finally coming to light,” the director said.
Ratcliff said he and Gabbard have made their referrals to the DOJ, and will keep sharing intelligence to support their “fair and just claims against those who perpetrated this hoax agains the American people and this stain on our country.”
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