Crossfire Hurricane Team (Credit: Conservative Treehouse)
The Classified Appendix to Special Counsel John Durham’s report has been released. You can view it here.
To briefly summarize, the Classified Appendix provided further information about the matters covered in parts of Durham’s report – specifically, those relating to Hillary Clinton’s plan to link Trump and Russia; the threat of foreign influence by a foreign government; and the Carter Page FISA application renewals.
But the most material information covers the Clinton Plan, and provides further details on how that plan started, efforts by Clinton and her team to influence officials within the Obama Administration, and how the Clinton Campaign would use Crowdstrike to further their theory that the Russians hacked and leaked information from the Democratic National Convention (DNC) and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC).
The Clinton Plan Origins
Some context is needed to understand how the Obama Administration discovered the Clinton Plan back in July of 2016. And the Classified Appendix supplies just that.
From 2014 to 2016, persons affiliated with Russian intelligence hacked and gained access to the emails of numerous US public and private entities, including government agencies, non-profits, and think tanks. This included the Open Society Foundations, formerly known as the Soros Foundation.
Sources provided the U.S. with intelligence concerning these hacks and access, including emails and Russian reports analyzing the hacked communications. Some of the emails originated from Leonard Benardo (remember that name), who was the Regional Director for Eurasia at the Open Society Foundations (Soros).
One of the Russian reports obtained by the FBI concerned a discussion of confidential discussions with Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz concerning the Hillary Clinton e-mail scandal, and included the following intelligence:
- The potential of an FBI investigation of “possible corruption relating to Department of State (under the leadership of Clinton) preferential treatment of donors to the Clinton Foundation caused a significant negative reaction inside the party. . . According to Wasserman-Schultz, FBI, so far, does not have persuasive evidence against Hillary Clinton because of the timely deletion of relevant data from mail servers.”
- To solve the problem of the investigation of Hillary Clinton potentially darkening the final part of his presidency, Obama “puts pressure on FBI Director James Comey through Attorney General Lynch, however, so far, without concrete results.”
Another Russian intelligence memo provide to U.S. intelligence – this time from March 2016 – stated:
- “The political director of the Hillary Clinton staff, Amanda Renteria, regularly receives information from Attorney General Loretta Lynch on the plans and intentions of the FBI.”
- By this time, Clinton staff had begun the process of formulating a plan to link Trump and Russia – potentially through Christopher Steele, who, at the time the memo was drafted, had already begun “preparing open source opposition research regarding Trump’s purported ties to Russian oligarchs.
High-level FBI and DOJ officials, including Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, were briefed on these materials in March of 2016. They ultimately dismissed this reporting and the FBI declined to investigate whether Attorney General Lynch had, in fact, communicated with Amanda Renteria (the “political director of the Hillary Clinton staff”).
More Evidence Concerning the Clinton Plan and Crowdstrike
In July 2016, U.S. intelligence received additional information from its source. This time, there were reports that summarized apparently hacked materials and “certain hacked emails allegedly sent by Leonard Bernardo of the Open Society Foundations.” This is the information possessed by CIA Director John Brennan that would be eventually briefed to President Obama and others within his Administration.
The memorandum stated that Hillary Clinton “approved a plan proposed by one of her foreign policy advisors, Julianne Smith” to smear Donald Trump by linking him to Russia. Clinton’s approval would take place on July 26, 2016.
By magnifying “Putin’s support for Trump” and alleging Putin was influencing the election, Clinton would “force the White House” to confront Russia. Importantly, the memo noted that “Clinton’s supporters in the FBI lack conclusive irrefutable evidence of the Russian Federation’s involvement in the scandal, tied to the theft of the DNC’s correspondence.” (Note: that assessment regarding the hack-and-leak turned out to be true.)
The memo also noted that without direct evidence linking Russia to the hacks, “it was decided to disseminate the necessary information through the FBI-affiliated ‘attic-based’ technical structures that are involved in cyber security, in particular, the Crowdstrike and ThreatConnect Companies, from where the information would then be disseminated through leading US publications.”
In other words, Crowdstrike would provide information to the FBI concerning the alleged hack and then feed the media the same. And that’s what happened.
Emails Discussing the Clinton Plan
The Classified Appendix contained further evidence illustrating the Clinton Plan and the strategy to weaponize the DNC/DCCC hacks – this time from emails sent from Leonard Benardo of the Open Society Foundations.
The first is a July 25, 2016 email where Benardo discusses the Clinton Plan, the “long-term affair to demonize Putin and Trump”, and how, later on, “the FBI will put more oil into the fire.”
Another email obtained by U.S. Intelligence (foreign source unknown) from late July 2016 suggested a plan to link Guccifer 2.0 to Russia and how “Clinton sympathizers” within the U.S. government needed to condemn the alleged Russian actions and tie them to Putin:
That email attached a July 27, 2016 email from Benardo (Soros), which confirmed that Hillary “approved Julia’s idea about Trump and Russian hackers hampering U.S. elections” to “distract people from her own missing email.” Importantly, the Benardo email again discussed the use of Crowdstrike to further the Clinton Plan.
Some discussion is necessary concerning whether the Benardo emails were authentic. Durham and his team looked at that very issue, stating: “Certain [U.S. Intelligence] analysis and officers whom the Office interviewed, and who were well-versed in the Sensitive Intelligence collection, stated that their best assessment was that the Benardo emails were likely authentic.”
While Durham was unable to locate corresponding records from the think tanks, his Office did “identify certain emails, attachments, and documents that contain language and reference with the exact same or similar verbiage to the materials” we discussed above.
And while Julianne Smith could not “specifically remember proposing a plan to Clinton or other campaign leadership to try to tie Trump to Putin or Russia,” she conceded “that it was possible that she had proposed ideas on these topics to the campaign’s leadership, who may have approved those ideas.” That’s essentially an admission.
More corroboration concerning Benardo’s statements that “Julie says it will be a long-term affair to demonize Putin and Trump and that “the FBI will put more oil into the fire” came from texts that Julianne Smith sent to a Clinton foreign policy advisor. Smith was actively digging into whether the FBI or other government agency were investigating the hacks:
Wrapping things up, Durham concluded that it was his “Office’s best assessment that the July 25th and July 27th emails that purport to be from Benardo were ultimately a composite of several emails that were obtained through Russian intelligence hacking of the U.S.-based Think Tanks, including the Open Society Foundations, the Carnegie Endowment, and others.”
The Response of U.S. Intelligence and the FBI – and AG Lynch’s “weird reaction”