The blockbuster report released by Special Counsel John Durham Monday found The New York Times published fake news peddled by federal intelligence officials in 2017.
In February 2017, the Times reported the Trump campaign had routine contact with Russian officials.
“Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence,” read the headline.
“Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials,” the Times reported. “American law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercepted the communications around the same time they were discovering evidence that Russia was trying to disrupt the presidential election by hacking into the Democratic National Committee, three of the officials said.”
The entire story, however, was fabricated, according to the bombshell report published by Durham.
[READ: 61 Hacks Who Peddled Russian Collusion And Should Never Be Trusted Again]
“As early as 2017, the FBI still did not possess any intelligence showing that anyone associated with the Trump campaign was in contact with Russian intelligence officers during the campaign,” Durham noted.
Indeed, based on declassified documents from early 2017, the FBI’s own records show that reports published by The New York Times in February and March 2017 concerning what four unnamed current and former U.S. intelligence officials claimed about the Trump campaign personnel being in touch with any Russian intelligence officers was untrue.
The Durham report out Monday caps off a two-and-a-half-year investigation into the origins of the Russia hoax established by Attorney General William Barr. The report found “neither U.S. law enforcement nor the Intelligence Community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.”
Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Sign up for Tristan's email newsletter here.