In 2016, America was gripped by a political firestorm. Allegations of Russian meddling in the presidential election dominated headlines, casting a shadow over Donald Trump’s campaign.
But the real scandal wasn’t Moscow’s interference, but a calculated plot from within.
Newly declassified documents reveal a bombshell: Hillary Clinton’s campaign, with ties to the Obama administration and billionaire George Soros, orchestrated a scheme to smear Trump with false claims of Russian collusion, all to distract from Clinton’s own email scandal in one of the most explosive political cover-ups in modern history.
The declassified intelligence documents, released Thursday by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, expose a Clinton campaign plan to falsely link Donald Trump to Russia during the 2016 election.
The revelations, detailed in the newly unclassified appendix to Special Counsel John Durham’s 2023 report, show that the scandal-plagued former secretary of state personally approved a strategy to "demonize"” Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, leveraging the FBI and media to amplify the narrative.
The documents, including two memos from January and March 2016, describe "confidential conversations" between then-Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Open Society Foundations officials Leonard Benardo and Jeffrey Goldstein, tied to billionaire George Soros.
The memos outline a plot, crafted by Clinton’s foreign policy adviser Julianne Smith, to "raise the theme of 'Putin’s support for Trump'" and equate it with Russian hacking of election infrastructure.
“HRC [Hillary Clinton] approved [campaign adviser] Julie’s idea about Trump and Russian hackers hampering US elections. That should distract people from her own missing emails, especially if the affair goes to the Olympic level,” Benardo wrote in a July 27, 2016 email to Smith. “The point is making the Russian play a US domestic issue. In absence of direct evidence, Crowdstrike and ThreatConnect will supply the media, and GRU [Russia’s intelligence agency] will hopefully carry on to give more facts."
Another email from Benardo, dated July 25, 2016, stated: "The media analysis on the DNC hacking appears solid. Julie says it will be a long-term affair to demonize Putin and Trump. Now it is good for a post-convention bounce. Later the FBI will put more oil into the fire."
The scheme relied on firms like Crowdstrike and ThreatConnect, which were contracted by the DNC to investigate alleged hacks.
Despite lacking "conclusive irrefutable evidence" of Russian involvement in the DNC email leak, as noted in the Durham annex, these firms fed the media narrative of Russian interference.
The FBI, under Director James Comey, failed to investigate the Clinton campaign’s role, even after receiving intelligence about the plan in March and July 2016.
Durham’s investigation found that the FBI and CIA assessed the Benardo emails as "likely authentic," though exact copies couldn’t be corroborated with Open Society.
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The CIA also ruled out Russian fabrication of the intelligence.
"It is a logical deduction [that] Smith was, at minimum, playing a role in the Clinton campaign’s efforts to tie Trump to Russia," Durham concluded.
The documents also implicate the Obama administration.
A January 2016 memo claimed President Barack Obama pressured FBI Director Comey, through Attorney General Loretta Lynch, to quash the investigation into Clinton’s private email server, which mishandled classified information.
"Obama has no intention to darken the final part of his presidency and ‘legacy’ by the scandal surrounding the main contender from the [Democratic Party],” the memo read.
Further, the March 2016 memo alleged Obama “sanctioned the use of all administrative levers" to shield Clinton from FBI scrutiny.
Meanwhile, the Clinton-funded Steele dossier, authored by ex-spy Christopher Steele, was used by the FBI to secure FISA warrants to surveil Trump aide Carter Page, despite Russian intelligence reportedly knowing of Steele’s work by July 2016 and FBI reports in 2017 suggesting the dossier might contain Russian disinformation.
On August 3, 2016, CIA Director John Brennan briefed Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Comey, and others at the White House on the Clinton campaign’s plan.
Yet, the FBI dismissed the intelligence without investigation, while pushing the Trump-Russia probe, codenamed Crossfire Hurricane, opened by agent Peter Strzok on July 31, 2016, based on unverified third-hand information.
"Based on the Durham annex, the Obama FBI failed to adequately review and investigate intelligence reports showing the Clinton campaign may have been ginning up the fake Trump-Russia narrative for Clinton’s political gain, which was ultimately done through the Steele Dossier and other means," Grassley said. "This political weaponization has caused critical damage to our institutions and is one of the biggest political scandals and cover-ups in American history."
Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard declassified the annex at Grassley’s request, citing the "overriding public interest" in transparency.
"These intelligence reports and related records, whether true or false, were buried for years,”" Grassley added. "The new Trump administration has a tremendous responsibility to the American people to fix the damage done and do so with maximum speed and transparency."
Investigative reporter Paul Sperry recently reported: “I’m told there are texts/emails indicating Hillary Clinton campaign aides directly coordinated with the Obama White House, NSC, State Dept and Intelligence Community officials in efforts to dig up dirt tying Donald Trump to Vladimir Putin in July 2016 …developing…”
The evidence is undeniable: a coordinated effort by the Clinton campaign, with apparent complicity from Obama’s FBI and intelligence community, sought to sabotage Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign with a fabricated Russian collusion narrative.
This wasn’t just politics—it was a deliberate attempt to undermine a democratic election and distract from Hillary Clinton’s own scandals.
The declassified Durham annex lays bare the truth that Trump and his supporters have long claimed: the Russia hoax was a treasonous political hit job, an actual seditious conspiracy orchestrated at the highest levels.
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