Hillary’s plan to link Trump to Putin was made aware of Obama and Biden – Durham report

According to the Durham report, the FBI should have done more to investigate Russian intelligence analysis that suggested 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton personally approved a plan to “defame” her opponent Donald Trump by claiming foreign election interference .

Special Counsel John Durham’s findings, released Monday, represent the long-awaited conclusion of an investigation that Trump and his allies claimed would reveal mass wrongdoing by law enforcement agencies.

Durham concluded 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 had done to analyze or otherwise consider the Clinton Plan intelligence, stating that it was “only one data point”, he concluded.

The CIA considered the information so important that President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and other top officials were briefed on it in the summer of 2016

“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.’

Special Counsel John Durham released his long-awaited report on Monday. It said the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation should have examined the Clinton intelligence

Special counsel John Durham was appointed in 2019 by then-Attorney General Bill Barr to investigate misconduct related to the Crossfire Hurricane probe

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.

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

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.