![]() She called the intelligence that was consuming Durham’s time bogus, saying it “looked like Russian disinformation to me.”Ī spokesman for Clinton didn’t respond to a request for comment.ĭurham concludes that it would be impossible to prosecute anyone for their handling of the Clinton Plan intelligence. She calls it, “really sad,” adding “I get it, you have to go down every rabbit hole.” In her interview with Durham’s investigators, Clinton expressed sympathy for Durham’s hunt. Ratcliffe publicly said that the intelligence community never corroborated the Russian claims of a Clinton Plan to frame Trump, and didn’t know whether it was fabricated.īut Durham believes the uncorroborated intelligence should have at least made the FBI question whether it was being used by a political opponent to pursue allegations against the Trump campaign, the report shows. The 2016 intelligence got the attention of then CIA Director John Brennan, who briefed the Obama White House and referred the issue to the FBI.ĭuring the Trump administration, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe released some of Brennan’s notes about the intelligence used in his briefing of former President Barack Obama. The investigation was looking into whether any crimes occurred in the handling of an uncorroborated piece of US intelligence indicating the Russians knew of a Clinton campaign plan to vilify her opponent, Trump, by tying him to Russia. Special Counsel John Durham’s report details his investigation of a purported effort by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign to tie Donald Trump to Russia – and Durham concluded that it “did not, all things considered, amount to a provable criminal offense.”ĭurham reveals in a footnote that he interviewed Clinton in May 2022 as part of the probe. At closing arguments during one of last year’s trials, Durham told jurors that “the FBI failed” on many occasions. Other FBI officials described rookie mistakes that undercut the bureau’s brief inquiry into a possible Trump-Russia internet backchannel. Witness testimony exposed the FBI’s overreliance on the dossier as it sought court approval to wiretap a former Trump campaign adviser in 2016. He suggested that if the FBI had taken those steps, it would have found that US intelligence agencies did not have any evidence tying Trump to Russian leadership officials.įBI failed to corroborate Steele dossier allegations: The report is critical of the Steele dossier, the explosive document that had been used by the FBI to bolster its case for probable cause to secure surveillance warrants against a former Trump campaign adviser.Ĭrossfire Hurricane investigation “did not and could not corroborate any of the substantive allegations” contained in the controversial Steele dossier, which was used by the FBI to obtain a FISA warrant, Durham found. ![]() That finding was at the core of Durham’s most scathing criticism of the FBI’s decision to launch a full investigation.ĭurham knocked the FBI for failing to take several steps before launching the Trump campaign investigations, such as interviewing relevant witnesses, reviewing its own intelligence databases or using “any of the standard analytical tools typically employed by the FBI in evaluating raw intelligence.” ![]() The Durham report, however, relies on many public findings - including problems with the investigation that were detailed in a 2019 investigation by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz - to question the bureau’s decision to open a full investigation, one the watchdog found to be legal and unbiased.Īnd while Durham acknowledges the FBI did have reason to open a preliminary review or investigation, he accuses the bureau of failing to uphold its “important mission of strict fidelity to the law in connection with certain events and activities described in this report.”Ĭlaims FBI had no real evidence of collusion before launching probe: Durham concluded that federal investigators did not have “any actual evidence of collusion” between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia before launching a yearslong probe into the matter. ![]() Here are t he takeaways from the special counsel’s report :ĭurham finds FBI rushed to investigate Trump: The special counsel’s office “conducted more than 480 interviews,” and “obtained and reviewed more than one million documents consisting of more than six million pages,” while also issuing 190 grand jury subpoenas, according to the report. Special counsel John Durham released his final report on Monday in which he casts doubt about the FBI’s decision to launch a full investigation into connections between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia during the 2016 election. ![]()
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