Donald Trump repeatedly has claimed the Obama administration and even President Barack Obama himself spied on his campaign. In May of 2020 then-Attorney General Bill Barr ordered an investigation into the "unmasking" practices of the Obama administration. The actual report, which found no evidence of wrongdoing, was never made public, although there were some news reports.
But now, the "full, 52–page, document, which had been classified top secret," has been obtained by BuzzFeed News in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
"A Justice Department probe found that members of the Obama administration did not seek to reveal the identity of General Michael Flynn 'for political purposes or other inappropriate reasons,' a newly disclosed report reveals," Buzzfeed states.
Trump as far back as March 2017 falsely accused Obama of spying on him, which helped ignite his base. He continued to make similar remarks for years. Those false and baseless attacks have become part of the MAGA narrative.
In August of 2020 CNN reported: "President Donald Trump says all the time, 'they spied on my campaign.' He ad-libbed during his Thursday night convention speech to add the phrase into his prepared remarks. And he tweeted it last week as a rebuttal to former President Barack Obama's convention address."
Another recent incantation came Wednesday night at the Republican convention, when Trump's former acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell said the "Obama-Biden administration secretly launched a surveillance operation on the Trump campaign." Though that is a slightly softened version of "they spied on my campaign" the story is essentially the same.
Buzzfeed adds that John Bash, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas who conducted the investigation at Barr's direction, says in his report:
“My review has uncovered no evidence that senior Executive Branch officials sought the disclosure of” the identities of US individuals “in disseminated intelligence reports for political purposes or other inappropriate reasons during the 2016 presidential-election period or the ensuing presidential-transition period."