The FBI has quietly launched an
investigation into a decade of Democratic party and deep-state antics
from Russia collusion to Jack Smith, opening the door for the
appointment of a special prosecutor to examine whether the
well-documented episodes amount to a criminal conspiracy to meddle in
three U.S. elections to the benefit of Democrats and the detriment of
President Donald Trump, Just the News has learned.
The “grand conspiracy” case was opened several weeks ago after new
FBI Director Kash Patel took over, and it could get a significant boost
if Trump were to declassify two secret tranches of evidence that
identify a potential ignition point to the alleged conspiracy in the
summer of 2016, according to several people directly familiar with the
inquiry, who spoke to Just the News on a condition of anonymity.
The first piece of evidence is a classified annex to a years-old
inspector general probe of Hillary Clinton’s improper email server
sought by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley. That annex
is believed to show that credible information about possible wrongdoing
was intentionally ignored by the FBI.
The second tranche of evidence was identified by former Russiagate
Special Counsel John Durham in his final report. The evidence was dubbed
in the report as the “Clinton plan intelligence," and it was also
placed in a classified annex kept from the American public and even many
members of Congress.
Excerpts from the publicly-available and unclassified Durham report
show that U.S. spy agencies were aware that Clinton’s 2016 campaign was
concocting a bogus Russia collusion narrative to harm Trump’s election
chances before the FBI opened its now-discredited Crossfire Hurricane
probe, in part using evidence created by the Clinton campaign or offered
by Clinton associates.
Both pieces of evidence have remained sealed from public view for
nearly a decade and are highly classified because they reveal sensitive
intelligence-gathering methods, officials said.
The FBI declined comment.
Sunshine is the best disinfectant
CIA Director John Ratcliffe earlier this month released a scathing review
of the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment of Russian influence in
the 2016 election, criticizing then-CIA Director John Brennan for
joining the FBI in pushing to include disgraced British ex-spy
Christopher Steele’s baseless anti-Trump dossier. In particular, Ratcliffe concluded that then-CIA Director John Brennan "showed a preference for narrative consistency over analytical soundness."
Ratcliffe later posted
on social media about his report, calling the smear campaign against
Trump an "atypical & corrupt process under the politically charged
environments of former Dir. Brennan & former FBI Dir. Comey."
If Trump declassifies the Grassley and Durham documents, prosecutors
could submit them to a grand jury in an effort to try to show a distinct
pattern of the FBI and spy agencies willfully ignoring intelligence or
evidence damaging to Democrats while relentlessly pursuing Trump with
evidence that was often flawed.
Trump administration officials have weighed naming a special prosecutor to probe the recent bombshell revelations reported by Just the News
that the FBI received human source intelligence – and some
corroborating evidence – that China was engaged in a scheme to create fake mail-in ballots
in 2020 to help Joe Biden win. The FBI failed to investigate the
matter, and even recalled the intelligence and asked fellow spy agencies
to destroy it.
But the five-year statute of limitations on that inquiry is only
weeks away from expiring since the evidence arrived in August 2020,
leaving the potential for criminal charges or other accountability on an
almost impossibly tight timetable.
Conspiracy, racketeering charges may change everything
The overarching conspiracy case opened by Patel’s FBI offers a more
expansive approach that would allow a special prosecutor time to tie
alleged criminal events currently covered by statutes of limitations to
older events by treating them as part of an ongoing conspiracy or even a
racketeering operation.
The “grand conspiracy” probe also would open the door to empanel a
grand jury outside of Washington D.C. where juries have been reluctant
to convict actors who pursued Trump. If voting patterns are any
indicator, the Capitol City is the most hostile venue to Trump. The
district has never supported a GOP presidential candidate. CNN reported
that only one Republican presidential candidate has ever won more than
20% of DC’s vote — Richard Nixon in 1972, with 21.56%, and in the last
election, a whopping 92.1% of the vote went against Trump.
One possibility is the state of Florida, where Special Counsel Jack
Smith raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in 2022 and charged the president
with mishandling classified documents in a case that was ultimately
dismissed by a federal judge.
“Florida is an intriguing option because overt acts of the alleged
conspiracy occurred there and are still inside the statute of
limitations,” said a former federal prosecutor who was consulted
recently by Trump administration officials.
If the Trump administration were to approve the appointment of a
special prosecutor and treat the last decade of weaponization as an
ongoing conspiracy, it would allow prosecutors and grand jurors to
explore whether multiple instances of ignoring potential wrongdoing by
Democratic Party leaders were overt acts of a conspiracy to use the
color of government to improperly influence the 2016, 2020 and 2024
elections.
Democrats and government officials from Hillary Clinton to ex-FBI
chief James Comey and ex-CIA Director John Brennan to Smith have
emphatically denied wrongdoing while acknowledging mistakes were made.
But congressional Republicans have revealed a bounty of evidence
suggesting a genuine issue of material fact that many acts were
intentional.
Republican investigators in Congress have pointed to key events that
helped Democrats, damaged Trump and other GOP candidates, and could be
considered in a conspiracy case. These events include:
- Clearing Hillary Clinton of criminal wrongdoing for transmitting classified information on an insecure and private email server;
- Refusing to pursue foreign intelligence about possible wrongdoing in
the email case that was flagged in the classified annex of the
inspector general report that Sen. Grassley has relentlessly pursued for
years;
- Failing to investigate the August 2020 intelligence that China was
trying to hijack the 2020 election by creating fake driver’s licenses
that could be used for bogus mail-in ballots to help Biden win;
- A Biden campaign-inspired effort to portray Hunter Biden’s damning
laptop as Russian disinformation when it was, in fact, validated as
legitimate evidence in the FBI’s possession for years before the issue
was known to the public;
- Obstructing IRS and FBI investigators in their early efforts to
probe Hunter Biden’s tax and gun crimes as two whistleblowers showed
Congress in 2023; and
- Concealing Joe Biden’s apparent mental decline ahead of the 2024
election, which required an unprecedented bait-and-switch atop the
Democrat ticket when Kamala Harris was installed as the presidential
nominee without ever being challenged, debated against or garnering a
single primary vote.
Building a case against weaponization of the justice system against Trump
Likewise, prosecutors and the FBI may examine the multiple efforts to
pursue Trump,l -- often on unsubstantiated evidence like collusion with
Russia -- as a conspiracy to deprive the president and his supporters
of their civil liberties and to use law enforcement powers to tip an
election against a candidate.
Some of the episodes that House and Senate investigators have identified on that front include:
- Opening up the Russia collusion probe in July 2016 after knowing
Clinton’s campaign was trying to plant evidence of Trump collusion with
Russia;
- FBI agents deceiving the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in
order to get FISA warrants to spy on Trump campaign figures like Carter
Page;
- Giving false or misleading testimony to Congress to hide the flaws in the case against Trump;
- Seeking to extend a criminal probe of Trump national security
adviser Mike Flynn in January 2017 after the FBI had already concluded
he had not engaged in any wrongdoing;
- Including the uncorroborated and discredited Steele dossier in the
Obama administration’s December 2016 intelligence community assessment
(ICA) to bolster the claim that Vladimir Putin was trying to help Trump
win even when CIA experts objected to its inclusion;
- The Biden White House counsel’s office giving instructions to get
the National Archives to ask the FBI to start a criminal investigation
into Trump’s possession of presidential records, instead of continuing
pre-raid negotiations to return them as Biden was afforded;
- Raiding Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home over the objections of some FBI supervisors; and
- Appointing Smith to be a special counsel even though he wasn’t
confirmed by the Senate as required by DOJ policy, an act that
eventually got the Florida classified documents prosecution dismissed.
Choices of Special Counsel are limited
The Trump administration still has many hurdles if it takes the path
opened by Patel’s predicated conspiracy investigation, including the
fact that it has few U.S. DOJ attorneys confirmed by the Senate who
could act as special counsel.
One option is to name a Senate-appointed Cabinet member or agency
head who is a lawyer with prosecutorial experience as the special
counsel, sources told Just the News.
The other hurdle is declassifying some of the most sensitive
intelligence that remains secret nine years after the summer of 2016.
That information could be used by prosecutors to present to grand jurors
a description of the two ignition points of the alleged conspiracy,
namely, giving Clinton a pass on her email scandal and launching the
Russia collusion case against Trump.
Ironically, both events were set in motion on July 5, 2016, when
then-FBI Director James Comey held a news conference and, without DOJ's
blessing, announced Clinton would not face criminal charges in the email
probe. On the very same day, Steele visited an FBI handler in Europe to
begin the process of getting his Clinton-funded Russia collusion
dossier injected into the government’s investigation.
Clinton's illicit email server may come back to haunt her
For years, Grassley has tried to get the government to release the
classified annex of the Hillary Clinton email probe by the DOJ inspector
general, claiming that it shows the FBI had good reason not to clear
Clinton in July 2016 and instead had new evidence that warranted further
criminal investigation.
Sources told Just the News that Grassley’s team has had
significant conversations in recent weeks with the Trump administration
that could lead to the potential release of the bombshell evidence from
the FBI's Clinton email probe, code-named “Midyear Exam.”
The Senate Judiciary Committee chairman explained the significance of
the evidence in a letter he sent in 2019 to then-Attorney General
William Barr.
“As noted on page 154 of Chapter 5 of the Inspector General’s
unclassified report, the classified appendix raises significant issues
associated with the FBI’s failure to review certain highly classified
information in support of its Midyear investigation,” Grassley wrote.
”In particular, the Inspector General noted that it learned that the FBI
acquired classified material that ‘may have included information
potentially relevant to the Midyear investigation.’
“The FBI even drafted a memorandum in May 2016 stating that access to
the information was ‘necessary to complete the investigation.’
However, that memorandum was never completed,” Grassley’s letter added.
“During the Inspector General’s investigation, when FBI witnesses
were interviewed by the Inspector General, they took the position that
the information would not materially impact the conclusion. That
explanation is inconsistent with the memorandum’s self-identified
purpose and demands clarification” Grasley's letter said.
You can read that letter here.
Classified annexes may be the key evidence
The second tranche of evidence was repeatedly mentioned in Durham’s
final 2022 report on the failures of the Crossfire Hurricane
investigation. It, too, was hidden away in a classified annex.
Durham called the evidence the “Clinton plan intelligence” in his
report, and described how the Obama administration knew before the
Russia collusion probe targeting Trump was opened that Hillary Clinton
had personally approved a project to gin up a bogus Russia scandal
against her GOP opponent.
“The Classified Appendix to this report provides further information
about (i) the details of the Clinton Plan intelligence; (ii) facts that
heightened the potential relevance of this intelligence to the Office's
inquiry; and (iii) the Office's efforts to verify or refute the key
claims found in this intelligence,” Durham wrote.
“As described herein and in the Classified Appendix, U.S. officials
described the Clinton Plan intelligence in various other ways in their
official notes and documents. As described more fully in the Classified
Appendix, there were specific indications and additional facts that
heightened the potential relevance of this intelligence to the Office's
inquiry,” he added.
You can read the full report here.
Durham laid out a timetable of how the intelligence came in and how
it was handled in a troubling manner that put discredit on the entire
effort to probe Trump for Russia collusion in the middle of the 2016
election without any substantiated evidence of criminal wrongdoing.
Here is Durham’s verbatim synopsis and chronology:
"The Intelligence Community received the Clinton Plan
intelligence in late July 2016. The official who initially received the
information immediately recognized its importance including its
relevance to the U.S. presidential election- and acted quickly to make
CIA leadership aware of it. Materials obtained from former Director
Brennan's office holdings reflect that he personally received a copy of
the intelligence.
When interviewed, Brennan generally recalled reviewing the
materials but stated he did not recall focusing specifically on its
assertions regarding the Clinton campaign's purported plan. Brennan
recalled instead focusing on Russia's role in hacking the DNC. On July
28, 2016, Director Brennan met with President Obama and other White
House personnel, during which Brennan and the President discussed
intelligence relevant to the 2016 presidential election as well as the
potential creation of an inter-agency Fusion Cell to synthesize and
analyze intelligence about Russian malign influence on the 2016
presidential election.
Brennan's recollection was that he spoke with Director Comey on
the morning of July 29, 2016, to brief him on his July 28th meeting with
the President. Brennan could not recall when he actually saw the
Clinton Plan intelligence, but he did not think he had the information
when he spoke to Comey on that morning. Immediately after communicating
with the President, Comey, and DNI Clapper to discuss relevant
intelligence, Director Brennan and other agency officials took steps to
ensure that dissemination of intelligence related to Russia's election
interference efforts, including the Clinton Plan intelligence, would be
limited to protect sensitive information and prevent leaks.
Brennan stated that the interagency Fusion Cell, a team to
synthesize and analyze pertinent intelligence on Russian malign
influence activities related to the presidential election, was put in
motion after his meeting with President Obama on July 28th. Email
traffic and witness interviews conducted by the Office reflect that at
least some CIA personnel believed that the Clinton Plan intelligence led
to the decision being made to set up the Fusion Cell.
On August 3, 2016, within days of receiving the Clinton Plan
intelligence, Director Brennan met with the President, Vice President
and other senior Administration officials, including but not limited to
the Attorney General (who participated remotely) and the FBI Director,
in the White House Situation Room to discuss Russian election
interference efforts.
According to Brennan's handwritten notes and his recollections
from the meeting, he briefed on relevant intelligence known to date on
Russian election interference, including the Clinton Plan intelligence.
Specifically, Director Brennan's declassified handwritten notes reflect
that he briefed the meeting's participants regarding the "alleged
approval by Hillary Clinton on 26 July of a proposal from one of her
[campaign] advisors to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal
claiming interference by the Russian security services."
In other words, the top echelons of the Obama administration had
reason to believe that Hillary Clinton was trying to concoct a Russia
scandal against Trump. Not only did Obama's team fail to stop it, it
allowed the FBI to push the investigation into the same allegations,
Durham noted.
Durham also stressed that the Clinton plan intelligence was kept from
key personnel, leaving them unaware they might be investigating a false
scandal or political dirty trick. Here are Durham’s verbatim
observations on that cone of silence.
"The Office showed portions of the Clinton Plan intelligence to a
number of individuals who were actively involved in the Crossfire
Hurricane investigation. Most advised they had never seen the
intelligence before, and some expressed surprise and dismay upon
learning of it. For example, the original Supervisory Special Agent on
the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, Supervisory Special Agent-1,
reviewed the intelligence during one of his interviews with the Office.
After reading it, Supervisory Special Agent-I became visibly upset and
emotional, left the interview room with his counsel, and subsequently
returned to state emphatically that he had never been apprised of the
Clinton Plan intelligence and had never seen the aforementioned Referral
Memo.
Supervisory Special Agent-1 expressed a sense of betrayal that no
one had informed him of the intelligence. When the Office cautioned
Supervisory Special Agent-1 that we had not verified or corroborated the
accuracy of the intelligence and its assertions regarding the Clinton
campaign, Supervisory Special Agent-I responded firmly that regardless
of whether its contents were true, he should have been informed of it.
Former FBI General Counsel Baker also reviewed the Clinton Plan
intelligence during one of his interviews with the Office. Baker stated
that he had neither seen nor heard of the Clinton Plan intelligence or
the resulting Referral Memo prior to his interview with the Office. He
acknowledged the significance of the reporting and explained that had he
known of it during the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, he would have
viewed in a different and much more skeptical light (i) information the
FBI received from Steele concerning Trump's purported ties to Russia
and (ii) information received from attorney Michael Sussmann that
purported to show a secret communications channel between the Trump
Organization and Alfa Bank."
If Trump declassifies the two tranches of evidence, it would give
prosecutors an extraordinary way to help grand jurors understand that
the era of what many call the weaponization of the Justice Department
began with two extraordinary and election-changing events: one
benefitting Hillary Clinton, and the other harming the GOP nominee
Trump.
For years, the Democratic Party and its supporters have been using the phrase "nobody is above the law." The time may soon come where citizens can determine whether that battle cry was sincere, or just politics as usual.
