Documents that indicate Hillary Clinton <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hillary-clinton-greenlit-russia-hoax-to-hide-email-scandal-declassified-docs-reveal" target="_blank" rel="noopener">approved</a> a Russia collusion hoax against her rival Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign were &#8220;buried in a back room,&#8221; FBI Director Kash Patel said on Thursday.
He made the comment after the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/new-durham-bombshell-obama-era-fbi-allowed-trump-russia-hoax-to-fester" target="_blank" rel="noopener">release</a> of a newly declassified annex from former Special Counsel John Durham that discussed how the Obama-era FBI appeared to ignore intelligence that indicated Clinton&#8217;s campaign, its supporters, or Russian disinformation fueled allegations of ties between Trump&#8217;s 2016 campaign and Moscow in order to distract from the controversy over her unauthorized use of a private email server while serving as Secretary of State.
&#8220;We uncovered this annex, along with thousands of other documents, buried in a back room at the FBI,&#8221; Patel <a href="https://x.com/FBIDirectorKash/status/1951012713930354869" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> in a post on X. &#8220;It revealed a highly classified piece of the Durham report: evidence that the Clinton campaign plotted to frame President Trump and fabricate the Russia collusion hoax. We worked with Chairman Grassley and declassified the documents immediately. And now the American people can see the truth for themselves. The Russia hoax was a disgrace that President Trump and our country should’ve never been put through.&#8221;
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who is chairman of the Judiciary Committee and a lead Russia-gate investigator who pushed for the declassification of the annex, released the document on Thursday.
&#8220;This political weaponization has caused critical damage to our institutions and is one of the biggest political scandals and cover-ups in American history,&#8221; Grassley said in a statement. &#8220;The new Trump administration has a tremendous responsibility to the American people to fix the damage done and do so with maximum speed and transparency.&#8221;
Attorney General Pam Bondi has already initiated a new &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/justice-department-to-form-strike-force-to-assess-weaponization-of-intel-community" target="_blank" rel="noopener">strike force</a>&#8221; tasked with evaluating the evidence relating the Obama administration&#8217;s efforts to drive the Russia collusion allegations in response to various documents the Trump administration has been releasing to the public, such as findings that allegedly show officials in the Obama administration <a href="https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/press-releases-2025/4090-pr-18-25" target="_blank" rel="noopener">manufactured and manipulated</a> intelligence regarding Russia to undermine Trump.
The declassified <a href="https://www.grassley.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/declassified_durham_annex_released_by_chairman_grassley.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">annex</a>, which still contains some redactions, spoke of how the FBI received information detailing a plan that Clinton purportedly approved to use firms to spread disinformation through media, expecting the bureau to &#8220;put more oil into the fire&#8221; and distract from her email scandal. Durham also wrote how it seemed the FBI &#8220;dismissed&#8221; the intelligence as &#8220;not credible without any investigative steps actually having been taken to either corroborate or disprove the allegations.”
Former President Barack Obama and top national security veterans from his administration have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/30/opinion/trump-obama-treason-russia-miller.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pushed back</a> on <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/obama-denies-bizarre-trump-claims-of-2016-election-hoax" target="_blank" rel="noopener">claims</a> of there being a &#8220;treasonous conspiracy,&#8221; but the Trump administration has pledged to keep on digging into the matter.
&#8220;This should be a step toward justice,&#8221; Patel said in his post on X. &#8220;There will be more to come. Your FBI will keep being relentless to get the truth out. We’re thankful for federal partners [at the Justice Department, CIA] and more. And thank you [Grassley] for your tireless investigative work.&#8221;

FBI Director Kash Patel

Evidence Of Clinton Russia Hoax Was ‘Buried In Back Room’ At FBI: Kash Patel

2016 Election

Donald Trump

Hillary Clinton

John Durham

kash patel

Russia

Russia Collusion Hoax

U.S.

A newly declassified document from former Special Counsel John Durham&#8217;s report suggests the Obama-era FBI ignored intelligence that indicated Hillary Clinton&#8217;s campaign or Russian disinformation fueled allegations of collusion between President Donald Trump&#8217;s 2016 campaign and Russia.
The disclosure of the <a href="https://www.grassley.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/declassified_durham_annex_released_by_chairman_grassley.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">annex</a>, which still has some redactions, comes more than two years after Durham completed his investigation and heavily criticized the FBI&#8217;s Crossfire Hurricane probe into alleged links between Trump&#8217;s campaign and Russia. Trump&#8217;s second administration declassified the section as the president and members of his team <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/time-to-go-after-people-trump-wants-severe-consequences-for-dems-who-pushed-russia-hoax" target="_blank" rel="noopener">demanded accountability</a> for what they deemed to be a Russia collusion hoax.
One key section of the classified addendum to the Durham Report says the &#8220;FBI was fully alerted to the possibility that at least some of the information it was receiving about the Trump campaign might have its origin either with the Clinton campaign or its supporters, or alternatively, was the product of Russian disinformation. Despite this awareness, the FBI appears to have dismissed the [intelligence information] as not credible without any investigative steps actually having been taken to either corroborate or disprove the allegations.&#8221;
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who is chairman of the Judiciary Committee and a lead Russiagate investigator who pushed for the declassification of the annex, released the document on Thursday.
&#8220;Based on the Durham annex, the Obama FBI failed to adequately review and investigate intelligence reports showing the Clinton campaign may have been ginning up the fake Trump-Russia narrative for Clinton&#8217;s political gain, which was ultimately done through the Steele Dossier and other means,&#8221; Grassley said in a statement. &#8220;These intelligence reports and related records, whether true or false, were buried for years. History will show that the Obama and Biden administrations&#8217; law enforcement and intelligence agencies were weaponized against President Trump. This political weaponization has caused critical damage to our institutions and is one of the biggest political scandals and cover-ups in American history. The new Trump administration has a tremendous responsibility to the American people to fix the damage done and do so with maximum speed and transparency.&#8221;
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hillary-clinton-greenlit-russia-hoax-to-hide-email-scandal-declassified-docs-reveal" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Hillary Clinton Greenlit Russia Hoax To Hide Email Scandal, Declassified Docs Reveal</a>
In 2020, when he served as director of national intelligence, now-CIA Director John Ratcliffe <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-feds-referred-hillary-to-fbi-for-probe-after-allegedly-approving-plan-to-create-trump-russia-scandal-to-distract-from-email-scandal-odni-says" target="_blank" rel="noopener">unveiled</a> documents that showed federal officials referred Clinton to the FBI for investigation after obtaining &#8220;insight&#8221; into a Russian intelligence analysis that alleged she approved a campaign plan to link Trump to Russia&#8217;s hacking operations to distract from the controversy over her unauthorized use of a private email server while serving as secretary of state.
The annex in Durham&#8217;s report says FBI personnel, including then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, shared the intelligence regarding the potential Clinton campaign plan with high-ranking career officials at Department of Justice on March 31, 2016, and affirms that &#8220;multiple high-ranking&#8221; U.S. officials were apprised of the situation, including an August 3, 2016, briefing in the White House by CIA Director John Brennan to President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, FBI Director Comey, among others. It says notes from Brennan show the CIA sent an investigative referral to the FBI in September of 2016 that included the &#8220;purported Clinton campaign plan.&#8221;
One of the most heavily redacted parts of the annex says the CIA prepared a written assessment in 2017 on the &#8220;authenticity and veracity&#8221; of the intelligence described in the referral memo. &#8220;The CIA stated that it did not assess that the above [redacted] memoranda, or [redacted] hacked U.S. communications, to be the product of Russian fabrications,&#8221; it adds.
Durham <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/john-durham-affirms-crossfire-hurricane-investigators-kept-in-dark-about-alleged-clinton-plan" target="_blank" rel="noopener">testified</a> to Congress in 2023 that agents on the FBI&#8217;s Crossfire Hurricane team were not made aware of the intelligence, and his report indicated the &#8220;Clinton Plan intelligence&#8221; could have been helpful to them. The report pointed to British ex-spy Christopher Steele&#8217;s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/01/us/trump-russia-investigation-dossier.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">now-discredited</a> anti-Trump dossier, stemming from research funded by Clinton&#8217;s campaign and the Democratic National Committee, that the FBI was <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/doj-inspector-general-finds-17-significant-errors-or-omissions-in-carter-page-fisa-applications" target="_blank" rel="noopener">found</a> to have improperly used to secure FISA surveillance warrants against onetime Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. It also referenced the unfounded secret <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/durham-finds-researcher-felt-threatened-by-schiff-staffer" target="_blank" rel="noopener">backchannel</a> between the Trump Organization and Russia&#8217;s Alfa Bank that Clinton and her team <a href="https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/793250312119263233">promoted</a> in the run-up to the 2016 election.
&#8220;Whether or not the Clinton Plan intelligence was based on reliable or unreliable information, or was ultimately true or false, it should have prompted FBI personnel to immediately undertake an analysis of the information and to act with far greater care and caution when receiving, analyzing, and relying upon materials of partisan origins, such as the Steele Reports and the Alfa Bank allegations,&#8221; Durham&#8217;s report said. &#8220;The FBI also should have disseminated the Clinton Plan intelligence more widely among those responsible for the Crossfire Hurricane investigation so that they could effectively incorporate it into their analysis and decision-making, and their representations to the OI attorneys and, ultimately, the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court].&#8221;
During an <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/cia-director-says-classified-docs-will-blow-lid-off-russiagate" target="_blank" rel="noopener">interview</a> on Fox News over the weekend, Ratcliffe told &#8220;Sunday Morning Futures&#8221; host Maria Bartiromo that he had been working to secure the release of a classified section from Durham&#8217;s <a href="https://www.justice.gov/archives/media/1381211/dl" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a>.
&#8220;What hasn&#8217;t come out yet and what&#8217;s going to come out is the underlying intelligence that I have spent the last few months making recommendations about final declassification and sent that to the Department of Justice,&#8221; he said. &#8220;That will come out in the John Durham report classified annex. And what that intelligence shows, Maria, is that part of this was a Hillary Clinton plan, but part of it was an FBI plan to be an accelerant to that fake Steele dossier, to those fake Russia collusion claims by pouring oil on the fire, by amplifying the lie and burying the truth of what Hillary Clinton was up to.&#8221;
Ratcliffe went on to explain that &#8220;much of&#8221; the testimony that Clinton, former FBI Director James Comey, and Brennan provided to Durham or Congress in the past five years &#8220;is, frankly, completely inconsistent with what our underlying intelligence that is about to be declassified in the Durham annex, what that reflects.&#8221;
Acknowledging how Attorney General Pam Bondi has a new &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/justice-department-to-form-strike-force-to-assess-weaponization-of-intel-community" target="_blank" rel="noopener">strike force</a>&#8221; tasked with evaluating the evidence relating the Obama administration&#8217;s efforts to drive the Russia collusion allegations, the CIA director added, &#8220;It is a different Department of Justice, a different FBI, and an opportunity to look at how these people really did conspire to run a hoax, a fraud on the American people and against Donald Trump&#8217;s presidency.&#8221;
Comey <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spKHw3IFUVc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">testified</a> before the Senate in 2020, claiming, &#8220;In the main, it was done by the book, it was appropriate, and it was essential that it be done.&#8221; He also conceded there &#8220;were parts of it that were concerning.&#8221;
In an op-ed <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/30/opinion/trump-obama-treason-russia-miller.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">published</a> by The New York Times this week, Brennan and Clapper made a brief mention of Durham as they pushed back on Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard&#8217;s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/gabbard-obama-launched-years-long-coup-treasonous-conspiracy-against-american-people" target="_blank" rel="noopener">claim</a> that members of the Obama administration waged a &#8220;treasonous conspiracy&#8221; to undermine Trump.
&#8220;The special counsel John Durham, who was appointed during Mr. Trump&#8217;s first term to investigate how the Russia probe was conducted, similarly found no evidence of an Obama administration conspiracy against Mr. Trump,&#8221; they wrote. &#8220;But he affirmed the findings of the special counsel Robert Mueller, who conducted a separate investigation into the allegations, which found ample evidence of Russian interference in the election.&#8221;

New Durham Bombshell: Obama-Era FBI Allowed Trump-Russia Hoax To Fester

Chuck Grassley

Congress

James Comey

John Brennan

Politics

FBI Director Kash Patel found a trove of classified documents related to the Trump-Russia probe buried inside &#8220;burn bags&#8221; in a secret room at FBI headquarters, Fox News <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/patel-found-thousands-sensitive-trump-russia-probe-docs-inside-burn-bags-secret-room-fbi">reported</a> on Wednesday.
Among the thousands of documents discovered was the classified annex of special counsel John Durham&#8217;s final report on the Russian collusion conspiracy, according to multiple sources cited by Fox News. Durham&#8217;s classified annex reportedly contains the purported evidence against President Donald Trump that he reviewed. The burn bags found by Patel are used to destroy classified documents.
Sources told Fox News that the classified annex contains evidence from &#8220;credible foreign sources&#8221; indicating that the FBI might have played a role in spreading the Trump–Russia collusion conspiracy before it launched the Crossfire Hurricane probe.
&#8220;Ultimately, the release of the classified annex will lend more credibility to the assertion that there was a coordinated plan inside the U.S. government to help the Clinton campaign stir up controversy connecting Trump to Russia,&#8221; said one source who spoke to Fox News on condition of anonymity.
The Trump administration is in the process of declassifying Durham&#8217;s annex as Patel coordinates with CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and acting National Security Agency Director William Hartman. The report comes shortly after Gabbard <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/doj-receives-tusli-gabbards-criminal-referral-for-obama-russia-intel-controversy-report">released documents</a> indicating that the Obama administration knew it had no evidence to pin Trump on the bogus Russian collusion charges, but pushed the narrative forward anyway.
Gabbard <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/gabbard-obama-launched-years-long-coup-treasonous-conspiracy-against-american-people?author=Tim+Pearce&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Gabbard%3A+Obama+Launched+%E2%80%98Years-Long+Coup%2C%E2%80%99+%E2%80%98Treasonous+Conspiracy%E2%80%99+Against+American+People">said</a> that the evidence points to former President Barack Obama &#8220;leading the manufacturing of this intelligence assessment.&#8221; President Trump accused Obama of committing “criminal acts” over the Russiagate hoax, adding that the former president, along with other Democrats, should face &#8220;severe consequences.&#8221; Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-says-scotus-immunity-ruling-could-protect-obama-he-owes-me-big">said</a> earlier this week, however, that the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity last year would likely shield Obama from prosecution.
The FBI has opened <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-doj-puts-brennan-and-comey-under-investigation-for-russiagate-report">investigations</a> into former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey over their role in the Trump-Russia probe.
Patel and his team reportedly found the documents in a sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF) that was previously undisclosed in the FBI headquarters. The FBI director hinted at finding a secret room at the bureau&#8217;s headquarters during a June interview with podcast giant Joe Rogan, but he did not reveal what documents the room contained.
&#8220;Just think about this,&#8221; Patel said during the interview. &#8220;Me, as director of the FBI, the former &#8216;Russiagate guy,&#8217; when I first got to the bureau, found a room that Comey and others hid from the world in the Hoover Building, full of documents and computer hard drives that no one had ever seen or heard of. Locked the key and hid access and just said, &#8216;No one&#8217;s ever gonna find this place.'&#8221;

Kash Patel

Kash Patel Finds Secret FBI Room Filled With Thousands Of Trump-Russia Docs In ‘Burn Bags’

Kash Patel Finds Secret FBI Room Filled With Thousands Of Trump-Russia Docs In 'Burn Bags'

Elections

Obama Administration

Russiagate

Trump Administration

Forthcoming revelations from former Special Counsel John Durham&#8217;s report will expose the Russiagate controversy, showing just what Hillary Clinton and the FBI did to leverage a Russia collusion narrative against President Donald Trump, CIA Director John Ratcliffe said on Sunday.
During an interview on Fox News, Ratcliffe told &#8220;Sunday Morning Futures&#8221; host Maria Bartiromo that he has been working to secure the release of a classified section from Durham&#8217;s <a href="https://www.justice.gov/archives/media/1381211/dl" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> from 2023 that heavily criticized the FBI&#8217;s Crossfire Hurricane investigation into alleged links between Trump&#8217;s campaign and Russia.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
Today, exclusively on <a href="https://twitter.com/SundayFutures?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SundayFutures</a> with <a href="https://twitter.com/MariaBartiromo?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@MariaBartiromo</a>, CIA Director John Ratcliffe <a href="https://twitter.com/CIADirector?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@CIADirector</a> spoke about the origins of the Russia Collusion narrative.<a href="https://twitter.com/FoxNews?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@FoxNews</a> <a href="https://t.co/YYyWQnlwGO">pic.twitter.com/YYyWQnlwGO</a>
— SundayMorningFutures (@SundayFutures) <a href="https://twitter.com/SundayFutures/status/1949488131104801101?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 27, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;What hasn&#8217;t come out yet and what&#8217;s going to come out is the underlying intelligence that I have spent the last few months making recommendations about final declassification and sent that to the Department of Justice,&#8221; Ratcliffe said. &#8220;That will come out in the John Durham report classified annex. And what that intelligence shows, Maria, is that part of this was a Hillary Clinton plan, but part of it was an FBI plan to be an accelerant to that fake Steele dossier, to those fake Russia collusion claims by pouring oil on the fire, by amplifying the lie and burying the truth of what Hillary Clinton was up to.&#8221;
In 2020, when he served as director of national intelligence, Ratcliffe <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-feds-referred-hillary-to-fbi-for-probe-after-allegedly-approving-plan-to-create-trump-russia-scandal-to-distract-from-email-scandal-odni-says" target="_blank" rel="noopener">unveiled</a> documents that showed federal officials referred Clinton to the FBI for investigation after obtaining &#8220;insight&#8221; into a Russian intelligence analysis that alleged she approved a campaign plan to link Trump to Russia&#8217;s hacking operations in order to distract from the controversy over her unauthorized use of a private email server while serving as secretary of state.
Durham <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/john-durham-affirms-crossfire-hurricane-investigators-kept-in-dark-about-alleged-clinton-plan" target="_blank" rel="noopener">testified</a> to Congress that members of the FBI&#8217;s Crossfire Hurricane team were not made aware of the intelligence and his report indicated the &#8220;Clinton Plan intelligence&#8221; could have been helpful to them. The report pointed to British ex-spy Christopher Steele&#8217;s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/01/us/trump-russia-investigation-dossier.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">now-discredited</a> anti-Trump dossier, stemming from research funded by Clinton&#8217;s campaign and the Democratic National Committee, that the FBI was <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/doj-inspector-general-finds-17-significant-errors-or-omissions-in-carter-page-fisa-applications" target="_blank" rel="noopener">found</a> to have improperly used to secure FISA surveillance warrants against onetime Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. It also referenced the unfounded secret <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/durham-finds-researcher-felt-threatened-by-schiff-staffer" target="_blank" rel="noopener">backchannel</a> between the Trump Organization and Russia’s Alfa Bank that was <a href="https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/793250312119263233" target="_blank" rel="noopener">promoted</a> by Clinton and her team in the run-up to the 2016 election.
&#8220;Whether or not the Clinton Plan intelligence was based on reliable or unreliable information, or was ultimately true or false, it should have prompted FBI personnel to immediately undertake an analysis of the information and to act with far greater care and caution when receiving, analyzing, and relying upon materials of partisan origins, such as the Steele Reports and the Alfa Bank allegations,&#8221; Durham&#8217;s report said. &#8220;The FBI also should have disseminated the Clinton Plan intelligence more widely among those responsible for the Crossfire Hurricane investigation so that they could effectively incorporate it into their analysis and decision-making, and their representations to the OI attorneys and, ultimately, the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court].&#8221;
The report said there was a classified appendix that provides further information about &#8220;details of the Clinton Plan intelligence,&#8221; &#8220;facts that heightened the potential relevance of this intelligence&#8221; to the Office of Special Counsel&#8217;s inquiry, and &#8220;the Office&#8217;s efforts to verify or refute the key claims found in this intelligence.&#8221;
Ratcliffe told Bartiromo &#8220;much of&#8221; the testimony that Clinton, former FBI Director James Comey, and former CIA Director John Brennan provided to Durham or Congress in the past five years &#8220;is, frankly, completely inconsistent with what our underlying intelligence that is about to be declassified in the Durham annex, what that reflects.&#8221; Acknowledging how Attorney General Pam Bondi has a new &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/justice-department-to-form-strike-force-to-assess-weaponization-of-intel-community" target="_blank" rel="noopener">strike force</a>&#8221; tasked with evaluating the evidence relating the Obama administration’s efforts to drive the Russia collusion allegations, he added, &#8220;It is a different Department of Justice, a different FBI, and an opportunity to look at how these people really did conspire to run a hoax, a fraud on the American people and against Donald Trump&#8217;s presidency.&#8221;

CIA Director John Ratcliffe

CIA Director Says Classified Docs Will Blow Lid Off Russiagate

Barack Obama

John Ratcliffe

TOPSHOT-US-POLITICS-TRUMP-MEMORIAL DAY

The Russia Hoax Was Just The Beginning: The Left’s Plan To Undermine Trump’s Second Term

The Russia Hoax Was Just The Beginning: The Left's Plan To Undermine Trump’s Second Term

Democrats

James Clapper

Judges

Leftists

Opinion

Peter Strzok

President Trump

Robert Mueller

The testimony and report of Special Counsel <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/john-durham" target="_blank" rel="noopener">John Durham</a> show clearly that there was “political coordination” at the FBI in the investigation into former President Donald Trump over alleged collusion, according to Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro.
Shapiro made the comments on <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1752-the-schiff-hits-the-fan-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">his Thursday show</a> while discussing Durham&#8217;s testimony on Wednesday before Congress. Durham conducted a nearly four-year investigation that painted a damning picture of an FBI that disregarded its mission and central principles in order to pursue a partisan investigation into Trump.
“That report, if you&#8217;ll recall, was just an absolute disaster for Democrats. I called it maybe the worst political scandal in American history. Nobody actually took it seriously in the press, because to do so would have been devastating for the Obama administration. In particular, as I wrote at the time, Crossfire Hurricane was initiated based on sheer conjecture,” Shapiro said. 
Shapiro explained that the investigation was based on shoddy evidence that was in part begun by agents who had voiced political opposition to Trump. 
“The FBI basically greenlit the investigation within days of receiving that flimsy information. Peter Strzok, who&#8217;s an ardent Trump hater, he helped initiate that investigation. The investigation from notes was launched well before any dialogue with Russia, with Australia, or the intelligence community prior to any critical analysis of the information itself,” Shapiro said.
Durham <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/john-durham-set-to-testify-in-congress-over-damning-report-on-fbi" target="_blank" rel="noopener">found in his report</a> that the FBI opened the Crossfire Hurricane investigation into Trump’s campaign “based on raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence” and took allegations about Trump far more seriously than allegations about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
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During his testimony, Durham said that investigators at the FBI suffered from confirmation bias, and ignored evidence that didn&#8217;t fit the narrative that Trump was colluding with Russia.
&#8220;Well, all of this ticked off the Democrats to no end, because what he is suggesting here is systemic failure. And it&#8217;s not just a question of a few bad apples,” Shapiro said. 
Durham said <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/john-durham-says-fbi-agents-apologized-to-him-for-trump-probe" target="_blank" rel="noopener">during his Wednesday testimony</a> that some current and former agents at the FBI had apologized to him for the investigation. 
“Let me give you some real-life views,” Durham said. “I have had any number of FBI agents who I’ve worked with over the years — some of them are retired, some of them are still in place — who have come to me and apologized for the manner in which that investigation was undertaken.”

House Select Intelligence Committee Receives Testimony From Former Special Counsel John Durham In Closed Hearing

Durham Testimony Suggests ‘Political Coordination’ Against Trump At FBI, Ben Shapiro Says

Crossfire Hurricane

Members of the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/fbi" target="_blank" rel="noopener">FBI</a>&#8216;s Crossfire Hurricane team were not made aware of intelligence about <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/hillary-clinton" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hillary Clinton</a>&#8216;s 2016 presidential campaign allegedly cooking up a plan to tie her rival <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/donald-trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Donald Trump</a> to Russia, according to Special Counsel <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/john-durham" target="_blank" rel="noopener">John Durham</a>.
During a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, Chairman <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/jim-jordan" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jim Jordan</a> (R-OH) got Durham to establish how the intelligence was important enough to be discussed by CIA Director John Brennan during a White House briefing with President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden (who is now president of the United States), Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and FBI Director James Comey in the summer of 2016.
That information came from a Russian intelligence report and was soon placed into a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/cia" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CIA</a> referral memo addressed to Comey and Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok, who was involved in opening the Crossfire Hurricane inquiry. Yet, as told by Durham, Crossfire Hurricane agents who had recently started investigating alleged links between Trump&#8217;s campaign and Russia never got the memo.
Durham said &#8220;no&#8221; when asked whether Comey shared the information with FBI agents on the case. He was then prompted to recount how a supervisory special agent who had been involved in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation became distraught when Durham&#8217;s team shared the intelligence with him during an interview.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
WATCH: Full exchange between Rep. <a href="https://twitter.com/Jim_Jordan?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Jim_Jordan</a> and Special Counsel John Durham.
The hearing continues LIVE on C-SPAN3 and online here: <a href="https://t.co/To3Po9IsyS">https://t.co/To3Po9IsyS</a> <a href="https://t.co/plHwPbxONk">pic.twitter.com/plHwPbxONk</a>
&mdash; CSPAN (@cspan) <a href="https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1671523231021551616?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 21, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;We interviewed the first supervisor on the Crossfire investigation, the operational person,&#8221; Durham said. &#8220;We showed him the intelligence information. He indicated he had never seen it before. He immediately became emotional, and got up and left the room with his lawyer, spent some time in the hallway, and came back.&#8221;
He added later: &#8220;The information was kept from him.&#8221;
Durham&#8217;s <a href="https://www.justice.gov/storage/durhamreport.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a>, which the Department of Justice (DOJ) <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/durham-report-makes-sobering-findings-about-fbis-handling-of-trump-russia-probe" target="_blank" rel="noopener">released</a> last month, indicated the &#8220;Clinton Plan intelligence&#8221; could have been helpful to agents involved in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. &#8220;Most&#8221; of the individuals shown parts of the information by Durham&#8217;s team advised they had never seen it before, the special counsel&#8217;s report said.
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The report specifically points to British ex-spy Christopher Steele&#8217;s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/01/us/trump-russia-investigation-dossier.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">now-discredited</a> anti-Trump dossier, stemming from research funded by Clinton&#8217;s campaign and the Democratic National Committee, that the FBI was <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/doj-inspector-general-finds-17-significant-errors-or-omissions-in-carter-page-fisa-applications" target="_blank" rel="noopener">found</a> to have improperly used to secure FISA surveillance warrants against onetime Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. It also references the unfounded secret <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/durham-finds-researcher-felt-threatened-by-schiff-staffer" target="_blank" rel="noopener">backchannel</a> between the Trump Organization and Russia’s Alfa Bank that was <a href="https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/793250312119263233" target="_blank" rel="noopener">promoted</a> by Clinton and her team in the run-up to the 2016 election.
&#8220;Whether or not the Clinton Plan intelligence was based on reliable or unreliable information, or was ultimately true or false, it should have prompted FBI personnel to immediately undertake an analysis of the information and to act with far greater care and caution when receiving, analyzing, and relying upon materials of partisan origins, such as the Steele Reports and the Alfa Bank allegations,&#8221; Durham&#8217;s report said.
&#8220;The FBI also should have disseminated the Clinton Plan intelligence more widely among those responsible for the Crossfire Hurricane investigation so that they could effectively incorporate it into their analysis and decision-making, and their representations to the OI attorneys and, ultimately, the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court],&#8221; Durham&#8217;s report said.

John Durham Affirms Crossfire Hurricane Investigators Kept In Dark About Alleged Clinton Plan

Scandals

In a heated exchange on Wednesday, Rep. <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/matt-gaetz" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Matt Gaetz</a> (R-FL) tore into Special Counsel <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/john-durham" target="_blank" rel="noopener">John Durham</a>, going as far as to suggest the prosecutor was engaging in a &#8220;cover-up&#8221; of the Russia investigation.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/john-durham-fires-back-at-dem-questioning-his-reputation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Durham was appearing</a> before the House Judiciary Committee <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/john-durham-says-fbi-agents-apologized-to-him-for-trump-probe" target="_blank" rel="noopener">to testify</a> about his report, which heavily criticized the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/fbi" target="_blank" rel="noopener">FBI</a>&#8216;s probe into <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/durham-appears-to-squeeze-schiff-zinger-into-trump-russia-probe-testimony" target="_blank" rel="noopener">alleged links</a> between Donald Trump&#8217;s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia.
When Gaetz was called to question the witness, the congressman focused on areas of great interest to Republicans that Durham&#8217;s years-long inquiry apparently failed to resolve.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/RepMattGaetz?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RepMattGaetz</a> accuses former Special Counsel John Durham as being part of a &quot;cover-up&quot; regarding the FBI&#39;s investigation. Mr. Durham responded, calling the accusation &quot;offensive.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/N6f5UiYO0P">pic.twitter.com/N6f5UiYO0P</a>
&mdash; CSPAN (@cspan) <a href="https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1671600183409520640?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 21, 2023</a></blockquote>
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Gaetz inquired about Joseph Mifsud, a mysterious professor whose <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/18/us/politics/mueller-report-document.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">alleged talk of Russia having &#8220;dirt&#8221;</a> on Trump&#8217;s 2016 rival Hillary Clinton to Trump campaign adviser George Papadopolous kicked off a series of events that led to the FBI&#8217;s investigation, codenamed Crossfire Hurricane. Special counsel Robert Mueller said Mifsud was a London-based professor with &#8220;connections to Russia,&#8221; but some GOP investigators <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/devin-nunes-clinton-dirt-tipster-joseph-mifsud-has-ties-to-state-department" target="_blank" rel="noopener">suspect him of being tied to Western intelligence</a>.
Durham said his team struggled to track down Mifsud for an interview. Though Durham said he obtained some phones, he noted Mifsud&#8217;s lawyer in Europe claimed to not know where his client was located. &#8220;We pursued the facts as best we could with the tools that we had,&#8221; Durham said.
Gaetz also pressed Durham on phones used by members of Mueller&#8217;s team <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/top-mueller-prosecutor-andrew-weissmann-denies-mishandling-phone-evidence" target="_blank" rel="noopener">being wiped</a>. Durham said he did not investigate that issue because it was outside his scope, an assertion that Gaetz argued was untrue. Durham was similarly tight-lipped about a reported <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/02/us/politics/fbi-government-investigator-trump.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">government investigator</a> sent by the FBI to make contact with Papadopolous.
&#8220;We get after it was put in motion, the FBI did a bunch of wrong and corrupt things. Totally understand. We&#8217;re trying to deal with that. But when you are part of the cover-up, Mr. Durham, then it makes our job harder,&#8221; Gaetz said.
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&#8220;I mean if that&#8217;s your thought, there&#8217;s no way of dissuading from that,&#8221; Durham replied. &#8220;I can tell you that it&#8217;s offensive and the people who worked on this investigation spent their lives trying to protect the people in this country and pursued within the law to pursue what it is we were authorized to do.&#8221;
The clash continued as Gaetz faulted Durham for not being more zealous in charging people. He specifically name-dropped former FBI Deputy Director <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/andrew-mccabe" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Andrew McCabe</a>, who played a central role in the Russia investigation.
Gaetz also said Kevin Clinesmith, the former FBI lawyer <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-ex-fbi-lawyer-to-plead-guilty-in-durham-criminal-investigation-for-allegedly-falsifying-evidence" target="_blank" rel="noopener">who pleaded guilty</a> to falsifying a document used to justify FISA surveillance on onetime Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page, is already back to practicing law in Washington, D.C.
&#8220;The punishment was insufficient,&#8221; Gaetz said.
After making references to the Washington Generals, <a href="https://www.harlemglobetrotters.com/world-tour/roster/washington-generals/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the exhibition basketball team</a> that Gaetz said &#8220;basically gets paid to show up and lose&#8221; to the Harlem Globetrotters, the congressman criticized Durham for the &#8220;omissions&#8221; in his report and the overall &#8220;lack of work&#8221; by the special counsel.
&#8220;And for the people, like the chairman [Jim Jordan], who put trust in you, I think you let them down,&#8221; Gaetz said. &#8220;I think you let the country down. And you are one of the barriers to the true accountability that we need.&#8221;

John Durham hearing

‘Part Of The Cover-Up’: Gaetz Puts Durham On Blast During Hearing

'Part Of The Cover-Up': Gaetz Puts Durham On Blast During Hearing

Matt Gaetz

Special counsel <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/john-durham" target="_blank" rel="noopener">John Durham</a> appeared to squeeze a zinger about Rep. <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/adam-schiff" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Adam Schiff</a> (D-CA) into his testimony as they sparred over the Russia investigation on Wednesday.
During a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Schiff pressed Durham on a 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Trump&#8217;s son, Donald Trump Jr., and a Russian lawyer, as discussed in special counsel <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/robert-mueller" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Robert Mueller</a>&#8216;s report.
Schiff asked Durham if he was &#8220;aware&#8221; that Mueller and congressional investigations revealed the meeting was predicated on a Russian official offering the Trump campaign dirt on Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee in the 2016 presidential election.
Durham delivered a retort in which he said &#8220;People get phone calls all the time from individuals who claim to have information like that.&#8221;
Schiff then asked if Durham was saying the son of a presidential candidate &#8220;gets calls all the time from a foreign government offering dirt&#8221; on their election rival.
&#8220;I don&#8217;t think this is unique in your experience,&#8221; Durham quipped, a comment that elicited some chuckles in the room.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Schiff: The son of a presidential candidate gets calls all the time from a foreign government offering dirt on their opponent, is that what you are saying? <a href="https://t.co/1R7nH8xfmC">pic.twitter.com/1R7nH8xfmC</a>
&mdash; Acyn (@Acyn) <a href="https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1671529353509830663?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 21, 2023</a></blockquote>
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Durham appeared to be referencing how Schiff once spoke to Russian prank callers posing as a Ukrainian politician in 2017. At the time, Schiff was the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, which was conducting its own inquiry into Russian election interference.
Schiff can be heard in audio <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/gop-rep-digs-up-audio-of-schiff-saying-he-would-accept-dirt-on-trump-from-ukrainian-politician-in-prank-call" target="_blank" rel="noopener">saying</a> he would accept their alleged evidence of &#8220;compromising material&#8221; on Trump, including nude photos, and get in touch with the FBI to look into the claims.
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When word of the call got out, a spokesperson for Schiff claimed the congressman <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-russian-comedians-trick-adam-schiff-thinking-ryan-saavedra" target="_blank" rel="noopener">had suspected something was amiss</a>. “Before agreeing to take the call, and immediately following it, the committee informed appropriate law-enforcement and security personnel of the conversation, and of our belief that it was probably bogus,&#8221; <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/01/putins-game/546548/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the spokesperson told The Atlantic</a>.
Durham sat before the committee on Wednesday to testify about his report criticizing the FBI for how it opened and conducted its inquiry into alleged links between Trump&#8217;s 2016 campaign and Russia. That FBI investigation was later folded into Mueller&#8217;s special counsel probe after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey in 2017.
Under continued questioning by Schiff, Durham said he was not trying to &#8220;diminish&#8221; the Trump Tower meeting. Durham said the &#8220;more complete story is that they met and it was a ruse and they didn&#8217;t talk about Mrs. Clinton.&#8221;
Durham characterized the meeting as &#8220;ill-advised&#8221; but not illegal. Schiff shot back, saying, &#8220;It is illegal to conspire to get incriminating opposition research from a hostile government that is of financial value to a campaign.&#8221;
Mueller, whose special counsel investigation ended in 2019, reported that his team did not find sufficient evidence to show a criminal conspiracy between Trump&#8217;s campaign and Russia.
Mueller <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/mueller-report-no-evidence-trump-knew-about-trump-tower-meeting-n995816" target="_blank" rel="noopener">declined to charge Trump Jr.</a> in connection to the Trump Tower meeting. During that meeting, according to Mueller&#8217;s report, Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya and her associates <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/18/us/politics/mueller-report-document.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">did not provide damaging information on Clinton</a>, instead making the conversation about a Russian adoption issue.

Adam Schiff

Durham Appears To Squeeze Schiff Zinger Into Trump-Russia Probe Testimony

Durham Squeezes Schiff Zinger Into Trump-Russia Probe Testimony

Special Counsel <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/john-durham" target="_blank" rel="noopener">John Durham</a> said <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/fbi" target="_blank" rel="noopener">FBI</a> agents approached him to apologize for the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.
During testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, Durham spoke about his report that criticized the FBI over its probe into alleged links between Donald Trump&#8217;s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia.
&#8220;Our findings were sobering. I can tell you, having spent 40 years-plus as a federal prosecutor, they were particularly sobering to me,&#8221; Durham said.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
House Judiciary Committee John Durham Testimony
.@RepMikeJohnson: &quot;You said that your findings and conclusions are sobering&#8230;Why?&quot;
DURHAM: &quot;I have had any number of FBI agents&#8230;who have come to me and apologized for the manner in which that investigation [Crossfire Hurricane]… <a href="https://t.co/3kdf4RE8II">pic.twitter.com/3kdf4RE8II</a>
&mdash; Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) <a href="https://twitter.com/DailyCaller/status/1671515590341586944?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 21, 2023</a></blockquote>
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Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) later asked Durham to explain why his findings were sobering.
&#8220;Let me give you some real-life views,&#8221; Durham said. &#8220;I have had any number of FBI agents who I&#8217;ve worked with over the years — some of them are retired, some of them are still in place — who have come to me and apologized for the manner in which that investigation was undertaken.&#8221;
Durham said he believes the majority of the FBI&#8217;s personnel are &#8220;decent human beings&#8221; who swear under their oaths to abide by the law.
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John Durham: 
&quot;Our findings were sobering. Anybody who actually reads the report would find that the problems identified in the report are not susceptible to overnight fixes. What is required is accountability!&quot; <a href="https://t.co/h2Xybjri1w">pic.twitter.com/h2Xybjri1w</a>
&mdash; Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) <a href="https://twitter.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1671518451855130626?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 21, 2023</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;There were investigative activities undertaken or not undertaken here which raise real concerns about whether or not the law was followed, the policies in place at the FBI were followed,&#8221; Durham said.
After a years-long investigation, Durham concluded his probe, and the Department of Justice released his <a href="https://www.justice.gov/storage/durhamreport.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> last month. It accused the FBI of &#8220;confirmation bias&#8221; and being too quick to open a full-fledged investigation into the Russia matter.
Durham secured one guilty plea over the course of his investigation: that of former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, who was accused of falsifying a document in efforts to renew the authority to conduct FISA surveillance on onetime Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page. Clinesmith was spared prison time and faced a <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/fbi-lawyer-clinesmith-one-year-bar-suspension-guilty-plea-fisa-deception" target="_blank" rel="noopener">one-year bar suspension</a>.
In a statement responding to Durham&#8217;s report, the FBI said it “already implemented dozens of corrective actions, which have now been in place for some time.” The bureau also said Durham&#8217;s report &#8220;reinforces the importance of ensuring the FBI continues to do its work with the rigor, objectivity, and professionalism the American people deserve and rightly expect.&#8221;
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Durham said in his <a href="https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/durham-testimony.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">opening statement</a> that he is &#8220;encouraged&#8221; by some reforms the FBI has implemented but stressed that &#8220;the problems identified in the report are not susceptible to overnight fixes.&#8221;
The special counsel added: &#8220;As we said in the report, they cannot be addressed solely with enhanced training or additional policy requirements. Rather, what is required is accountability — both in terms of the standards to which our law enforcement personnel hold themselves and in the consequences they face for violations of law or policy.&#8221;

John Durham Says FBI Agents Apologized To Him For Trump Probe

Carter Page

General

Special counsel <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/john-durham" target="_blank" rel="noopener">John Durham</a> received a round of applause with his response to a House Democrat who scolded him during a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.
Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) warned Durham that his association with former President Donald Trump and former Attorney General William Barr threatened to damage his &#8220;good&#8221; image. &#8220;You will end up on the bottom of a pyre,&#8221; Cohen said.
Given a chance to offer a reply, Durham explained why he was not worried about it.
&#8220;My concern about my reputation is with the people who I respect and my family and my Lord, and I&#8217;m perfectly comfortable with my reputation with them, sir,&#8221; Durham said.
&#8220;Well said, God bless you,&#8221; Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) said, after which a round of applause could be heard. Another lawmaker was then called upon to address the witness.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Special Counsel John Durham gives a PERFECT response to an angry tirade by Democrat Rep. Steve Cohen:
&quot;My concern about my reputation is with the people who I respect and my family and my Lord, and I&#39;m perfectly comfortable with my reputation with them, sir.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/Cp7XBBQuJp">pic.twitter.com/Cp7XBBQuJp</a>
&mdash; RNC Research (@RNCResearch) <a href="https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1671523842395897856?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 21, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Durham appeared before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday to talk about his report criticizing the FBI for how it conducted its investigation into alleged links between Trump&#8217;s 2016 campaign and Russia.
Leading up to the back-and-forth about Durham&#8217;s reputation, Cohen and Durham talked about how Trump appointed Durham to be U.S. attorney in Connecticut and Barr later appointed Durham to be special counsel.
Cohen pressed Durham on whether he believes Trump is a good judge of character. The congressman got into how Barr has fallen out of favor with the former president. Cohen listed examples of how Trump has denigrated Barr, calling him a &#8220;gutless pig,&#8221; a &#8220;coward,&#8221; and a &#8220;RINO&#8221; — which is a derogatory term that stands for &#8220;Republican in name only.&#8221;
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Though Durham refused to opine on Trump&#8217;s character, he did comment on Trump&#8217;s insults against Barr. &#8220;In my experience, none of those are correct,&#8221; he said.
&#8220;So Mr. Trump isn&#8217;t that good of an expert on character and judging people?&#8221; Cohen asked. After Durham shrugged and declined to respond, Cohen surmised that Durham&#8217;s opinion is that Trump is a bad judge of character based on his defense of Barr.
&#8220;That&#8217;s outside the scope of my report,&#8221; Durham quipped with a smile. More laughter followed.

John Durham Fires Back At Dem Questioning His Reputation

Jim Jordan

Steve Cohen

William Barr

Seasoned prosecutor <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/john-durham" target="_blank" rel="noopener">John Durham</a>&#8216;s restrained approach to investigating how top FBI brass may have cozied up to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/hillary-clinton" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hillary Clinton</a>&#8216;s 2016 campaign vexed members of his special counsel team, journalist Seymour Hersh reported on Thursday.
Hersh, a Pulitzer Prize winner who recently <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/they-cant-be-that-stupid-journalist-slams-nyt-for-claiming-u-s-officials-suggested-pro-ukraine-group-attacked-nord-steam-pipelines" target="_blank" rel="noopener">faced controvers</a>y by alleging that the United States blew up the Nord Stream pipeline, <a href="https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/russiagates-missing-pieces" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote in his latest Substack article</a> how the &#8220;real story&#8221; of Russiagate involves FBI officials who &#8220;chose to look the other way&#8221; when the Clinton team cooked up ways to link then-candidate Donald Trump to Russia that culminated in British ex-spy <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/fbi-offered-to-pay-steele-1m-for-anti-trump-evidence-paid-possible-russian-spy-despite-knowing-his-info-was-bad" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Christopher Steele&#8217;s now-discredited dossier</a> and unfounded allegations of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/durham-finds-researcher-felt-threatened-by-schiff-staffer" target="_blank" rel="noopener">an Alfa Bank backchannel</a>.
&#8220;It became evident to some members of Durham’s staff that the real story was not about whether or not Trump had pee parties in a Moscow hotel room — one of the headline-producing allegations in the Steele Dossier that consumed the Washington press corps in the aftermath of Trump’s victory in the 2016 election,&#8221; Hersh wrote. &#8220;The issue was whether the Clinton campaign, in its constant leaking of false accusations and false data, had crossed a line.&#8221;
&#8220;I was told that there was tension and frustration over Durham’s initial lack of interest, or reluctance, to go beyond his investigative mandate and look closely at the possibility that some senior FBI officials had openly joined ranks with the Clinton campaign, with its drumbeat of spurious allegations, because, in some cases, of a shared belief in the importance of a Clinton victory in the fall election,&#8221; Hersh said. &#8220;Another factor, I was told, was the possibility of promotions — even to high-level Justice Department offices — in a potential Clinton administration.&#8221;
There has already been some reporting on consternation within the Durham team&#8217;s ranks. Durham&#8217;s No. 2 prosecutor, Nora Dannehy, resigned in 2020 in what <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/26/us/politics/durham-trump-russia-barr.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The New York Times described</a> as a &#8220;culmination of a series of disputes between them over prosecutorial ethics.&#8221; The newspaper also reported that two other prosecutors objected to indicting former Clinton campaign Michael Sussmann, who was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-jury-clears-former-clinton-attorney-michael-sussmann-of-lying-to-fbi" target="_blank" rel="noopener">acquitted last year</a> by a D.C. jury on a charge of lying to the FBI.
The full extent of what Durham ultimately discovered about &#8220;Clinton Plan intelligence&#8221; during his years-long inquiry remains shrouded, but the Department of Justice last month <a href="https://www.justice.gov/storage/durhamreport.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">released his 306-page report</a>. It made headlines for how it heavily criticized the FBI&#8217;s investigation into alleged ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.
&#8220;Durham, to his credit, did follow the leads that came to his office, but he left them in secrecy—perhaps in the Classified Appendix or perhaps completely off the record,&#8221; Hersh wrote. &#8220;He was seen by some as being mandated only to investigate FBI management shortcomings and believed the public needed a full accounting of the FBI bungling.&#8221;
&#8220;It was not clear whether Durham, had he decided to expand the parameters of his inquiry to include the implications of the intelligence about the Clinton campaign, would have been allowed to do so,&#8221; Hersh said. &#8220;As Durham himself writes, &#8216;any attempted prosecution premised on the Clinton Plan intelligence would face what in all likelihood would be insurmountable classification issues given the highly sensitive nature of the information itself.'&#8221;
Durham is scheduled to testify about his investigation before two committees next month. The special counsel is set to speak with the House Intelligence Committee in a closed session on June 20 and appear before the House Judiciary Committee in a public setting on June 21, <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/justice/john-durham-testify-house-judiciary-committee-june" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according to The Washington Examiner</a>.

Legendary Reporter Claims Durham’s Reluctance To Probe Clinton-FBI Alliance Irked Team

Hersh Reports Durham Irked Team With Reluctance To Investigate Clinton-FBI Alliance

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