Hillary Clinton DENIES attempting to ‘defame’ Trump in 2022 interview with John Durham

Special Counsel John Durham revealed that in May 2022 he questioned former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton — in which she denied trying to “defame” Trump by linking him to a baseless plot with Russia ahead of the 2016 election .

Durham said in the report published Monday that the FBI should have done more to investigate Russian intelligence analysis suggesting 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton personally approved a plan to “defame” her opponent Donald Trump through foreign election interference to claim.

However, in a footnote to the report published Monday, Durham said Clinton denied she had “slandered” then-presidential candidate Trump when she sat down with the special counsel team on May 11, 2022.

During the interview, Clinton told Durham’s lawyers it’s “really sad,” but she understood why they should continue to ask questions.

“I get it, you have to dive down every rabbit hole,” the former secretary of state said, according to the report.

According to Durham, Clinton responded during the interview when asked to comment on declassified information by then-Director of National Intelligence Ratcliffe about her “alleged plan” to “cause a scandal between Trump and the Russians.”

It seemed Russian disinformation to me; they’re really good at it, you know,” Clinton replied.

“Clinton said she had many plans to win the campaign, and anything that came into the public domain was available to her,” the report continued on her 2022 interview.

The report also says that “several other former members” of the Clinton campaign were interviewed about the “plan” Clinton had approved.

Those individuals included John Podesta and Biden’s current national security adviser Jake Sullivan.

Despite the fact that the government’s handling of the “Clinton Plan” information amounted to a “significant intelligence failure” and a disturbing example of “confirmation bias” leading to tunnel vision pursuit, “it did not amount to a demonstrable crime,” Durham concluded.

Durham also found that claims about Clinton’s efforts to smear Trump received less attention than allegations about her opponent, even though they were serious enough to be taken to President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.

Durham admitted that the claims were neither corroborated nor verified, but compares it to the now-discredited Steele Dossier, which outlines Trump’s ties to Moscow, which formed the basis for further investigation.

‘For example, [an FBI intelligence analyst] stated that he could not remember anything the FBI did to analyze or otherwise consider the Clinton Plan intelligence, stating that it was “just one data point,” he concluded.

“This is in stark contrast to the heavy reliance on the unconfirmed Steele reports, which at least some FBI officials seemed to know were likely funded or promoted by the Clinton campaign.”

Durham was tasked with investigating the basis for probes into Trump and his campaign.

The roughly 300-page report catalogs what Durham says were FBI and Justice Department missteps when investigators launched a potentially explosive investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow during the 2016 election.

It criticized the FBI for opening a full investigation based on “raw, unanalyzed and unconfirmed intelligence.”

In contrast, the report suggested that information damaging to Clinton went nowhere.

In late July 2016, U.S. intelligence agencies gained insight into Russian intelligence analysis alleging that U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had endorsed a campaign to spark a scandal against U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump by tying him to Putin and hacking the Democratic Party by the Russians. National Committee.

‘The [Intelligence Community] do not know the veracity of this claim or the extent to which the Russian intelligence analysis may reflect exaggeration or fabrication.”

It goes on to describe how CIA Director John Brennan briefed Obama and his top national security officials on the intelligence, including Hillary Clinton’s “alleged approval on July 26, 2016, of a proposal by one of her foreign policy advisers to imprison Donald Trump.” to defame. by initiating a scandal about interference by Russian security services.’

An “investigative referral” was then sent to FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Assistant 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 found that intelligence details had been circulated in an email to key members of the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane team by Aug. 22 — the code name for the investigation into Trump’s alleged ties to Moscow. or follow-up actions taken” in response.

Durham also said that FBI personnel who agreed to be interviewed did not recall receiving the referral memo or whether it led to action.

Crossfire Hurricane investigators also said they were unaware of the intelligence.

Durham said it made for a “rather surprising and inexplicable failure” to include what he called the “Clinton Plan intelligence” in the FBI’s investigation.

“CIA Director John Brennan and other intelligence officials recognized the importance of the intelligence by quickly informing Obama and other key figures,” he continued.

Whether or not the Clinton Plan information was based on reliable or unreliable information, or whether ultimately true or false, it should have prompted FBI personnel to conduct an analysis of the information immediately and with much greater care and exercise caution in receiving, analyzing and relying on materials of partisan origin,” such as the Steele dossier and other allegations.

But that failure didn’t reach the level of demonstrable criminal misconduct, he added.

The report said investigators repeatedly relied on “confirmation bias,” ignoring or explaining away evidence that undermined their premise of a Trump-Russia conspiracy as they pushed the investigation forward.

House GOP Chair Elise Stefanik condemned the report, calling it “criminal abuse of power” on the part of then-incumbent President Obama.

“This criminal abuse of power continued all the way to the Oval Office, where President Obama and then Vice President Joe Biden were involved 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.