Attorney General Pam Bondi has launched a grand jury investigation following a criminal referral from Tulsi Gabbard, the Trump administration's director of national intelligence, regarding the origins of the Trump-Russia collusion narrative.
The news was reported in the New York Post on Monday afternoon.
The move marks a significant escalation in the long-running controversy over how intelligence officials under the Obama administration handled claims of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Bondi, responding to what she called "clear cause for deep concern," instructed a federal prosecutor to begin presenting evidence to a grand jury. An indictment could follow, depending on the findings.
While the Department of Justice has remained tight-lipped, a spokesperson confirmed that Bondi is taking Gabbard's referral "very seriously."
The grand jury proceedings are expected to examine whether top officials conspired to mislead the public and misuse government intelligence to tie then-candidate Donald Trump to Russian actors — charges that Trump and his allies have long denied and labeled a political hit job.
The referral, submitted by Gabbard in late July, included a previously classified intelligence memorandum detailing how U.S. intelligence agencies suppressed evidence showing no Russian interference affected election infrastructure. The document accuses intelligence officials of pushing a false narrative to delegitimize Trump's presidency.
Gabbard, a former Democrat, alleged that "deep state actors" in the intelligence community buried key findings. Among the declassified records was a December 2016 meeting note where then-President Barack Obama allegedly directed intelligence leaders to draft a post-election assessment outlining Russian methods of interference — despite there appearing to be no clear impact on the actual vote count.
"The American people were sold a lie," Gabbard said at a press conference last week. "They were led to believe that Donald Trump was elected with the help of a foreign adversary. That narrative was manufactured."
No names have been released as targets of the grand jury, but speculation points to former Obama-era officials including John Brennan, James Clapper, and James Comey — figures repeatedly criticized by Trump supporters for their roles in promoting the Moscow collusion theory.
While it remains unclear whether any indictments will result — especially with potential statute-of-limitations hurdles — the investigation marks a turning point in exposing the roots of what many conservatives and Trump himself have referred to as among the greatest political hoaxes in modern history.
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