New declassified information claims the Obama-era FBI did not investigate credible intelligence that Hillary Clinton’s campaign, during the 2016 presidential election, was putting together a plan to link President Donald Trump to Russia. The new information comes from an annex to a 306-page report from Special Counsel John Durham.
Connecting Trump to Russia
The new 24-page annex contains detailed “confidential conversations” between former Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and senior officials at the Open Society Foundations, a nonprofit run by Democratic donor George Soros.
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“Today, CIA and the Department of Justice under Attorney General Pam Bondi are taking a bold step forward in declassifying the underlying intelligence in the Durham appendix showing the false Trump-Russia collusion narrative for what it was — a coordinated plan to prevent and destroy Donald Trump’s presidency. CIA stands with the Department and is committed to transparency and rebuilding trust in the [Intelligence Community]. The American people deserve the opportunity to see the evidence for themselves,” CIA Director John Ratcliffe said in a statement.
A memo from March 2016 referred to a plan from the Clinton campaign to link Trump to Russian organized crime. The memo said the Democratic Party was focused on discrediting Trump with “support from special services.”
Those special services were interpreted as U.S. intelligence or law enforcement, according to Trump administration FBI analysts.
The new annex said the FBI was alerted that some of the information coming in about the Trump campaign came from the Clinton campaign or its supporters, or could’ve been the product of Russian disinformation.
Former CIA Director John Brennan briefed former President Barack Obama, then-Vice President Joe Biden, former National Intelligence Director James Clapper and former FBI Director James Comey about the Clinton campaign’s plan.
Clinton email scandal
Another part of that alleged plan was to use the Trump-Russia connection to distract from her email scandal.
The report shows Obama sanctioned the use of all administrative levers to remove possibly negative effects from the Clinton email scandal.
“HRC approved Julia’s idea about Trump and Russian hackers hampering U.S. elections. That should distract people from her own missing email, especially if the affair goes to the Olympic level,” Leonard Benardo, senior vice president of the Open Society Foundations, reportedly said.
That seemed to reference the Russian doping campaign from the 2014 Winter Olympics.
“The American people deserve the full, unfiltered truth about the Russia collusion hoax and the political abuse of our justice system it exposed. Today’s declassification and release of documents tied to the Durham report is another step toward that accountability,” FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement.
Durham report
The Durham report, released in 2023, examined the origins of the FBI’s investigation into a link between Russian officials and Trump’s 2016 campaign.
Durham had brought criminal charges against three people during his investigation, losing both cases that went to trial. The third pleaded guilty to altering an email used to support a surveillance application but got no prison time.
Reaction to the annex
Obama and Clinton have not publicly responded to the release of the annex. Trump has also not put out a public response.
Trump and Obama recently traded barbs over Trump’s accusation of treason against Obama, claiming Obama plotted to link Trump to Russian meddling during his first term.
Obama responded, calling it a “weak attempt at a distraction.”
