Special Counsel John Durham has revealed he interviewed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in May 2022 but found no ‘provable criminal offence’, despite her clear attempt to ‘defame’ Trump by linking him to an unsubstantiated collusion plot with Russia before the 2016 election.
Durham said in the report released on Monday that the FBI should have done more to review an analysis by Russian intelligence suggesting that 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton personally approved a plan to ‘defame’ her opponent Donald. Trump alleging foreign interference in the election.
However, in a footnote to the report released on Monday, Durham said Clinton denied trying to “defame” then-presidential candidate Trump when she spoke with the team. special advocates on May 11, 2022.
During the interview, Clinton told Durham’s attorneys that it was “really sad” but that she understood why they had to keep asking questions.
“I get it, you have to go down all the rabbit holes,” the former secretary of state said according to the report.
According to Durham, Clinton responded during the interview when asked to respond to declassified information from then-Director of National Intelligence Ratcliffe about his “alleged plan” to “spark a scandal between Trump and Russians”.
It sounded like Russian disinformation to me; they’re very good at it, you know,” Clinton replied.
“Clinton has indicated that she has many plans to win the campaign and that anything in the public domain is available to her,” the report continued regarding her 2022 interview.
US intelligence obtained a Russian analysis suggesting that 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton personally approved a plan to “defame” her opponent Donald Trump, according to the Durham report released on Monday.
The CIA deemed the information important enough for President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and other senior officials to know about in the summer of 2016.
The report also states that “several other former members” of the Clinton campaign were questioned about the “plan” that Clinton had endorsed. Those people included John Podesta and current Biden national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
Although the government’s intelligence handling of the “Clinton Plan” represented a “significant intelligence failure” and a troubling example of “confirmation bias” leading to a tunnel vision prosecution, it “did not constitute a provable criminal offense.” concluded Durham.
The finding has sparked rage from Republicans, who say the FBI should be held accountable.
Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., said FBI funding levels should be seriously reduced because of Durham’s findings.
“There should be layoffs, and there should be reform, and it should be bipartisan,” Gaetz said.
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan told Fox News anchor Sean Hannity on Monday night that there was ‘a double standard’ for Republicans and Democrats, and agreed with Gaetz that the FBI funding should be cut.
Durham also found that allegations about Clinton’s attempts to smear Trump received less scrutiny than allegations about his opponent, even though they were serious enough to be passed on to President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.
Durham admitted the claims were neither corroborated nor verified, but compared them to the now-discredited Steele dossier outlining Trump’s ties to Moscow, which served as the basis for other investigations.
‘For example, [an FBI intelligence analyst] said he did not recall anything the FBI did to analyze, or otherwise consider the Clinton plan intelligence, stating it was “just a data point,” he said. he concluded.
“This contrasts sharply with his substantial reliance on the unsubstantiated Steele reports, which at least some FBI personnel seemed to know were likely funded or promoted by the Clinton campaign.”
Durham was assigned to investigate based on the investigations into Trump and his campaign.
The roughly 300-page report lists what Durham said were FBI and Justice Department missteps as investigators embarked on a potentially explosive probe into the 2016 election to determine whether the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow. .
He criticized the FBI for launching a full-fledged investigation based on “crude, unanalyzed and unsubstantiated intelligence”.
In contrast, the report suggested that information damaging to Clinton was going nowhere.
“In late July 2016, US intelligence agencies gained insight into Russian intelligence analysis alleging that US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had endorsed a campaign aimed at stoking a scandal against US presidential candidate Donald Trump by linking him to Putin. and the hacking of the Democratic Party by the Russians National Committee.
‘THE [Intelligence Community] does not know the accuracy of this allegation or the extent to which Russian intelligence analysis may reflect exaggeration or fabrication.
He goes on to describe how CIA Director John Brennan briefed Obama and his senior national security officials on intelligence, including Hillary Clinton’s “purported endorsement on July 26, 2016 of a proposal by one of his foreign policy advisers aiming to defame Donald Trump”. by stirring up a scandal denouncing the interference of the Russian security services.
Special Counsel John Durham released his highly anticipated report on Monday. He said the FBI investigation into Hurricane Crossfire should have looked at Clinton’s intelligence
Special Counsel John Durham was appointed in 2019 by then-Attorney General Bill Barr to investigate misconduct related to the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.
An “investigative reference” was then sent to FBI Director James Comey and Assistant Deputy Director of Counterintelligence Peter Strzok.
It was relevant information, Durham said, because it was part of a “mosaic of information” that the Steele dossier and other allegations were part of an anti-Trump smear campaign.
His office discovered that details of the intelligence had been released to key figures in the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane team – the code name for the investigation into Trump’s alleged ties to Moscow – in an August 22 email. . However, “the bureau did not identify any response.” or follow-up action taken’ in response.
Durham also said that FBI personnel who agreed to be interviewed did not recall receiving the dismissal memo or that it triggered any action.
Durham said it was a “rather startling and inexplicable failure” to incorporate what he called “Clinton Plan intelligence” into the FBI investigation.
Crossfire Hurricane investigators also said they were unaware of the information.
Durham said the inclusion of what he called “Clinton Plan intelligence” in the FBI investigation was a “rather surprising and inexplicable failure.”
“CIA Director John Brennan and other intelligence officials recognized the importance of intelligence by promptly briefing ‘Obama and other key figures,’ he continued.
“Whether or not the Clinton Plan intelligence was based on reliable or unreliable information, or whether it was ultimately true or false, it should have prompted FBI personnel to immediately undertake an analysis of the information and to act with much greater care and caution in receiving, analyzing, and relying on partisan material,” such as the Steele dossier and other allegations.
But that failure did not rise to the level of provable criminal acts, he added.
The report said investigators repeatedly relied on “confirmation bias,” ignoring or rationalizing evidence that undermined their premise of a Trump-Russia conspiracy as they pushed the investigation forward.
House GOP Chairwoman Elise Stefanik blasted the report, calling it a “criminal abuse of power” by then-incumbent President Obama.
“This criminal abuse of power has gone all the way to the Oval Office where President Obama and then Vice President Joe Biden was in the game from the very beginning. This was an illegal attempt by the politicized FBI and DOJ to interfere in our elections,’ she said in a statement to DailyMail.com.
