Hillary Clinton allegedly tried to hurt Donald Trump’s political chances by “stirring up” accusations of a Trump-Russia plot during the 2016 election, according to a new letter from Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe (DNI). U.S. intelligence officials subsequently asked the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) to look into the allegations in 2016 though it’s not clear it ever did.
The letter was addressed to Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and included three explosive allegations regarding Hillary Clinton and her campaign’s alleged plot to create a Trump-Russia conspiracy narrative.
Director Ratcliffe notes that in July 2016, U.S. intelligence agencies learned that Russian intelligence sources believed that “U.S. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had approved a campaign plan to stir up a scandal against U.S. Presidential candidate Donald Trump by tying him to Putin and the Russians’ hacking of the Democratic National Committee.” The director noted that the Intelligence Community (IC) does not know whether that allegation is true.
Second, Director Ratcliffe wrote that following the discovery, then CIA Director John Brennan “briefed President Obama and other senior national security officials on the intelligence, including the ‘alleged approval by Hillary Clinton on July 26, 2016 of a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisors to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services.’”
And lastly, the correspondence to Chairman Graham reveals that on September 7, 2016, intelligence officials sent an “investigative referral to FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Peter Strzok.”
This referral asked the FBI to investigate “U.S. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s approval of a plan concerning U.S. Presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian hackers hampering U.S. elections as a means of distracting the public from her use of a private mail server.”
Chairman Graham said in a statement regarding the disclosure, “This latest information provided by DNI Ratcliffe shows there may have been a double standard by the FBI regarding allegations against the Clinton campaign and Russia.”
“Whether these allegations are accurate is not the question. The question is did the FBI investigate the allegations against Clinton like they did Trump? If not, why not? If so, what was the scope of the investigation? If none, why was that?” the chairman added.
On Wednesday, September 30, 2020, Director Comey appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee in a hearing where he claimed not to remember the letter that was sent to him.
Chairman Graham asked Director Comey whether he recollected “getting an inquiry from the intelligence community in September 2016 about a concern that the Clinton campaign was going to create a scandal regarding Trump and Russia.”
“I do not,” the director replied.
“You don’t remember getting an investigatory lead from the intelligence community? You don’t remember getting that?” Chairman Graham asked again.
“That doesn’t ring any bells with me,” Director Comey responded.
It has previously been disclosed that the Clinton campaign and the Democrat National Committee (DNC) paid the law firm Perkins Coie a total of $12.4 million during the course of the 2016 election, part of which went to hiring research firm Fusion GPS to create a salacious dossier against then candidate Trump.
The dossier alleged that “the Kremlin colluded with the Trump campaign and that Russia has material that could be used to blackmail the president.” We now know that the dossier contained “uncorroborated” and “unverified” information.
The falsified dossier was then used by the FBI to investigate the Trump campaign and its alleged collusion with Russia.
On September 24, 2020, it was revealed that FBI agents were so concerned about their wrongdoings over the course of the Trump-Russia investigation that they went out and bought liability insurance. In previously undisclosed text messages, one FBI agent texted another agent on January 10, 2017, just two weeks prior to Trump’s inauguration, “we all went and purchased professional liability insurance.”
“Holy crap. All the analysts too?” the agent responded.
“Yep… All the folks at the Agency as well,” the first agent replied.
“Can I ask who are the most likely litigators?” the second agent then asked.
“The new attorney general might have some questions… then… we all get screwed,” the first agent responded.
Attorney General William Barr has tasked U.S. Attorney John Durham to investigate the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation, including whether any laws were broken during the course of the its inquiry into the Trump campaign.
So far, as The Daily Citizen reported, one ex-FBI agent has plead guilty in the first indictment arising from the probe.
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Photo from Kristi Blokhin / Shutterstock.com
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