The Department of Justice is launching a grand jury investigation into what the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, alleges is a conspiracy by President Obama and members of his national security team to fabricate an intelligence narrative suggesting that Russia actively aided President Trump’s 2016 campaign.

The attorney general, Pam Bondi,  believes there is “clear cause for deep concern” to bring a case, based on a criminal referral to a grand jury made by Ms. Gabbard, according to Fox News, which first reported the news of the grand jury investigation on Monday evening. 

However, the former officials who are expected to be named, or the kinds of charges they are likely to be facing, weren’t immediately clear on Monday night.

During a White House press conference last week, Ms. Gabbard, citing recently declassified files, claimed there was “irrefutable evidence” showing that the Obama administration “directed the creation of an intelligence community assessment that they knew was false.”

“In doing so, they conspired to subvert the will of the American people who elected Donald Trump in that election in November of 2016,” Ms. Gabbard said during the press conference.

No defendants have yet to be named, though the CIA director, John Ratcliffe, has suggested in interviews with Fox News that a former FBI director, James Comey, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, and a former CIA director, John Brennan, may be indicted as part of the investigation. 

Mr. Trump has repeatedly claimed in recent weeks that Mr. Obama himself was directly implicated and has engaged in treasonous conduct.

The investigation by a former special counsel, John Durham, into the FBI’s Trump-Russia probe resulted in only three criminal charges, one of which, against a former FBI lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith, resulted in a guilty plea (he was sentenced to probation). But his report was harshly critical of the FBI’s Russia investigation, claiming that there was a “lack of analytical rigor” and that the FBI and DOJ “failed to uphold their important mission of strict fidelity to the law.”

The grand jury may be restricted by who they can criminally charge due to statutes of limitation.

News of the probe follows in the wake of Ms. Bondi’s justice department transfer of a convicted Jeffrey Epstein associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, to a minimum-security federal prison camp at Bryan, Texas, just a week after her meeting with the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche. 

Last month, Mr. Trump accused Mr. Obama of “treason.”

“He started it, and Biden was there with him, and Comey was there, and Clapper, the whole group was there,” Mr. Trump said.

“These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction,” an Obama spokesman said in response.