Newly declassified intelligence documents released Thursday revealed Hillary Clinton personally approved a campaign plan to “smear” then-candidate Donald Trump with false Russian collusion claims to distract from her email scandal during the 2016 presidential race.
Special counsel John Durham uncovered the information during his multi-year investigation into intelligence activities during the 2016 election.
The intelligence, released Monday by Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), came from two memos obtained by the Obama administration containing “confidential conversations” between members of the DNC and George Soros’ Open Society Foundations before the 2016 election.
According to the declassified files, Clinton personally approved a plan proposed by her foreign policy advisor, Julianne Smith, to “smear Donald Trump by magnifying the scandal tied to the intrusion by the Russian special services in the pre-election process to benefit the Republican candidate.” Smith was later appointed to serve as Ambassador to NATO under President Joe Biden.
One stunning email dated July 27, 2016, stated: “HRC [Hillary Clinton] approved Julia’s [sic] 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.”
“The point is making the Russian play a U.S. domestic issue,” the email continued, adding, “In absence of direct evidence, Crowdstrike and ThreatConnect will supply the media, and GRU [Russia’s foreign intelligence arm] will hopefully carry on to give more facts.”
The Clinton campaign’s plan included “raising the theme of ‘Putin’s support for Trump'” and pushing public opinion to “equate” the Russian leader’s influence campaign with actual election infrastructure hacking. It also involved distributing “the necessary information through the FBI-affiliated … technical structures … in particular, the Crowdstrike and ThreatConnect companies, from where the information would then be disseminated through leading U.S. publications,” according to an email from Open Society Foundations Senior Vice President Leonard Bernardo.
The emails predicted that the FBI would “put more oil into the fire” of the Russia collusion narrative, with Obama even considering shutting down the bureau’s investigation into Clinton’s emails, according to the New York Post.
“Smith was, at minimum, playing a role in the Clinton campaign’s efforts to tie Trump to Russia,” Durham concluded.
Senator Chuck Grassley said in a statement: “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.”
“The American people deserve the full, unfiltered truth about the Russia collusion hoax and the political abuse of our justice system it exposed,” FBI Director Kash Patel stated, characterizing it as “one of the most shameful frauds ever perpetrated on the American public.”
The Russia collusion narrative dominated headlines for years during the first Trump administration. It led to multiple investigations, including Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, which ultimately found no evidence of criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia.