Conservative writer explains why Trump’s 'Obamagate' conspiracy theory shows he's living in an 'alternate reality'

At a press conference on Monday, President Donald Trump railed against his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama —referencing some “terrible” and illegal things that, Trump claimed, happened under “Obamagate.” But Trump refused to tell reporters what “Obamagate” is and asserted, “You know what the crime is.” Never Trump conservative Tim Miller, in an article for The Bulwark published this week, explains the bizarre background behind “Obamagate” and why it is a “stupid” conspiracy theory even by Trumpian standards.

Miller, who served as communications director for former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and has been active in the Republican National Committee, writes, “Trump’s deranged Mother’s Day tweetstorm and the halfhearted trolling of his predecessor at his Monday press conference seem like just a couple more examples of the mad king feeding his fans a juicy porterhouse — in this case, a theory about President Obama’s supposed crimes that is so stupid that even the president himself can’t answer the most basic question about it.”

Miller previously wrote about “Obamagate” in The Bulwark in October 2019, and he notes that the conspiracy is as follows: “Four years ago, there was a global conspiracy — comprised of President Obama, Vice President Biden, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, FBI Director Jim Comey, much of the FBI, the DNC, a company called CrowdStrike, multiple foreign intelligence services, and Ukrainian oligarchs — to undermine Donald Trump by planting a phony conspiracy theory that he was colluding with the Russians to win the 2016 election. These deep state operators framed several top Trump officials, fabricated evidence, and spied on the campaign with the end goal of committing the biggest fraud in American history in order to derail Trump.”

Miller goes on to explain, “There are a number of problems with this theory, though. The main ones being: (A) when spelled out all in one place, it is absurd on its face, and (B) if anything, the supposed deep-staters’ actions in 2016 served to help Donald Trump politically — particularly in the final weeks of the election, when the FBI reopened the investigation into their supposedly preferred candidate, Hillary Clinton, and then absolved Donald Trump of the actions they were supposedly framing him of in the New York Times.”

The Never Trump conservative concludes his article by stressing that “Obamagate” is yet another example of Trump living in an “alternate reality.”

“President Trump gets to live in an alternate reality of his own choosing — one that allows him to level unfounded allegations against his foes without even attempting to interact with anything approaching a fact or a piece of evidence, while never facing any consequences,” Miller writes. “It’s his longstanding, postmodern MO — in business, in his personal life, and in politics: create a preferred universe of convenient facts, then insist they are true, no matter what. There’s no reason we all should let him.”