Explosive new revelations from a newly declassified annex to special counsel John Durham’s 2023 report outline FBI-received intelligence from 2016 suggesting the Hillary Clinton campaign may have been involved in a plan to link Donald Trump to Russian election interference — a lead the Bureau was criticized for amplifying rather than thoroughly scrutinizing.
The 24-page “Durham annex,” made public Thursday at the direction of Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, presents a disturbing portrait of what Durham calls one of the most serious instances of political weaponization of intelligence agencies in modern U.S. history.
The annex, long classified and only released after years of congressional inquiry, includes memos, emails, and internal assessments from U.S. intelligence agencies in 2016. These documents reveal that the Clinton campaign, working with high-level Democrat operatives and foreign policy advisers, devised a plan to distract from her own burgeoning email scandal by painting Trump as a Russian agent.
“This was a Hillary Clinton plan,” former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe told “Fox News Sunday.”
“But part of it was an FBI plan to be an accelerant to that fake Steele dossier — pouring oil on the fire, amplifying the lie, and burying the truth.”
Clinton Campaign’s Covert Strategy
According to the declassified files, the plan was spearheaded by Clinton’s then-foreign policy adviser Julianne Smith, who later served as President Joe Biden’s ambassador to NATO.
The strategy, as outlined in emails and intelligence memos, was to “raise the theme of Putin’s support for Trump” and steer public opinion to equate Trump with Kremlin-backed hacking operations.
The annex features emails purportedly sent by Leonard Benardo, senior vice president of billionaire George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, detailing conversations with Smith and Clinton allies.
One July 2016 message allegedly reads: “Julie [Smith] says it will be a long-term affair to demonize Putin and Trump. Now it is good for a post-convention bounce. Later the FBI will put more oil into the fire.”
Two days later, Benardo followed up with another email stating, “HRC approved Julia’s idea about Trump and Russian hackers hampering U.S. elections. That should distract people from her own missing email.”
Role of the FBI and Obama Administration
The annex suggests that senior officials within the Obama administration — including then-President Barack Obama, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and FBI Director James Comey — were briefed on the intelligence alleging a Clinton campaign strategy, though it does not establish that they acted to facilitate or shield it.
A March 2016 memo cited in the annex describes the Democratic Party’s two-pronged strategy to discredit Trump, including “scandalous revelations” about Trump’s ties to Russian entities.
It also claims Obama “sanctioned the use of all administrative levers” to minimize fallout from the FBI’s Clinton email probe.
The memo further alleges that “special services” (interpreted as intelligence arms of the CIA and FBI) were involved in supporting opposition research — most notably through the controversial Steele dossier, a Clinton- and DNC-funded report later discredited.
Durham’s team assessed that while they could not confirm the precise origin or authenticity of every communication, intelligence from the CIA and FBI deemed the information “likely authentic,” and importantly, not Russian disinformation.
One of the most damning conclusions in the annex is that the FBI acted as an “accelerant” to the Clinton campaign’s strategy.
The Bureau, despite receiving early warnings about the political origins of the Steele dossier and the Clinton campaign’s intent, opened a full-scale investigation — Crossfire Hurricane — into Trump’s campaign in July 2016.
Moreover, internal communications reveal that some in the Intelligence Community attempted to embed the Steele dossier into the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment, despite objections from senior CIA analysts.
The dossier, laden with unverified claims, helped fuel years of media speculation and political attacks against Trump.
Denials From Key Figures
Clinton, when questioned by investigators, denied having knowledge of the plan, calling the documents “likely Russian disinformation.”
John Podesta, her 2016 campaign chair, also dismissed the emails as “ridiculous.”
Julianne Smith told reporters Thursday, “I have no comment,” when reached by the New York Post.
She has previously denied any involvement, telling the Office of Special Counsel she neither drafted nor received the emails attributed to her.
Yet Durham’s report notes that Smith’s communications on July 25, 2016 — the same day as one of Benardo’s key emails — show her reaching out to a campaign official to inquire whether a White House national security aide could confirm if the FBI had begun a formal investigation into the DNC hacking.
That aide responded, “She went as far as she could,” suggesting awareness but unwillingness to confirm an investigation.
Political Fallout and Grassley’s Response
Sen. Chuck Grassley, who championed the annex’s declassification, said in a statement Thursday that “history will show that the Obama and Biden administrations’ law enforcement and intelligence agencies were weaponized against President Trump.”
Grassley told Fox News’s “America’s Newsroom”: “This annex gives us information that the FBI had eight to 10 years ago that they never followed up on … the Steele dossier was paid for by the Clinton campaign, and now we know the FBI covered it up.”
He added, “It’s clear the goal was to derail Trump’s election and destroy his presidency. This is one of the biggest political scandals in U.S. history.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel, both appointees in the new Trump administration, supported the annex’s release.
Patel said, “The American people deserve the full, unfiltered truth about the Russia collusion hoax.”
While Clinton and Obama have yet to respond to the annex’s publication, Trump and allies are now calling for further criminal investigations and accountability measures.
“This was a conspiracy to sabotage a presidential campaign and presidency using the power of the federal government,” Trump spokesperson Liz Harrington said Thursday. “The American people deserve prosecutions — not just reports.”
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