Newly declassified evidence reveals that in 2016, the FBI received intelligence suggesting then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton intended to discredit then-GOP candidate Donald Trump by tying him to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
However, rather than scrutinize the political nature of the allegation, FBI leadership proceeded to launch a broad investigation into what later proved to be unfounded claims of Trump-Russia collusion—effectively advancing the Clinton campaign’s strategy even though officials knew it was likely fabricated.
“Now a major question hovers over the Justice Department strike force set up by Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate the affair: was it just a political dirty trick or did it rise to the level of a criminal conspiracy?” Just the News posited on Sunday. “Clinton’s own words in a 2016 election post-mortem are likely to be key to investigators.”
Public records indicate that Clinton, alongside key members of her 2016 campaign including general counsel Marc Elias, campaign manager Robby Mook, chairman John Podesta, communications director Jennifer Palmieri, and policy adviser Jake Sullivan, coordinated a strategy to link Trump to Putin as the race for the White House intensified.
Newly declassified intelligence, referred to as the “Clinton Plan intelligence,” reportedly includes intercepted communications involving an ally of George Soros. These documents suggest that the Clinton campaign intended to portray Trump as compromised by Russia and anticipated that the FBI would amplify the narrative through official channels.
It is now widely documented that the Clinton campaign and its hired operatives carried out an extended and coordinated effort to advance the fake ‘Russiagate’ narrative ahead of the election. This included, per Just the News:
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TV appearances, speeches and public pronouncements;
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an aggressive news media strategy;
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British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s decision to bring his now-discredited dossier to the FBI;
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and the spreading of debunked claims to the FBI and the public related to the Trump Organization and Russia’s Alfa Bank.
The explosive claims of a coordinated effort to falsely tie Donald Trump to Vladimir Putin—intended to divert attention from Hillary Clinton’s classified email controversy—are detailed in a previously classified, now mostly unredacted appendix from Special Counsel John Durham’s 2023 report.
The declassified findings from the Durham report include alleged emails from Leonard Benardo, a senior official at George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, as well as purported communications involving Julianne Smith, a foreign policy adviser to Hillary Clinton, Just the News added.