In the summer of 2016, months before the public was hit with a barrage of headlines about Donald Trump’s supposed electoral collusion with the Russians, American intelligence agencies had already learned of a plan by Hillary Clinton to plant that erroneous narrative into the mainstream. Nevertheless, top-ranking intelligence chiefs did nothing to unravel Clinton’s plan. Worse, according to the current director of the CIA, they magnified that false claim.
The Russia Collusion hoax was not only a “Hillary Clinton campaign scheme,” but one that the FBI further inflamed, according to recent comments by CIA Director John Ratcliffe. It was an all-hands-on-deck intel operation against Donald Trump and the American people.
Ratcliffe announced during a guest appearance on Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo that he has referred several major players involved in that conspiracy to the Justice Department for criminal charges. They include former FBI Director James Comey, former CIA Director John Brennan, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Trump’s presidential opponent in 2016. These referrals follow Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s referral of former U.S. President Barack Obama for criminal charges.
Obama’s “Treasonous Conspiracy”
Gabbard released on July 18 a report she said indicated a a “treasonous conspiracy” by Obama and his national security team to undermine the first Trump presidency by falsely claiming that the Trump campaign had colluded with the Russians to win the 2016 election. She published a 114-page report of previously classified documents to support the claim. You can read out report on that development here.
The Obama camp has since responded, calling it a “a weak attempt at distraction.” Obama spokesperson Patrick Rodenbush also repeated the prevailing defensive narrative that, even if Russia did not successfully affect the election results, that does not mean that Obama’s administration was lying. “Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes,” Rodenbush said.
Some have suggested that, whatever Obama’s role was, he likely won’t face prosecution due to presidential immunity protections.
New Revelations
On Sunday, Ratcliffe told Bartiromo that additional information will soon be made public. It will show that, while the Clinton campaign was the source of the Russia Collusion hoax, the FBI had its own agenda to magnify and perpetuate the claims in the Steele Dossier, named after Democratic opposition researcher and former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele.
Ratcliffe emphasized that, long before Gabbard’s office released receipts over a week ago, before the Robert Mueller investigation cleared Trump, and even before the Deep State tried to set up Trump as a “Putin puppet” through Operation Crossfire Hurricane, the U.S. intel community knew Trump was not working with the Russians. American intel intercepted in August 2016 Russian intel “talking about a Hillary Clinton plan … to falsely accuse Donald Trump of Russia collusion, to vilify him and smear him.…” Brennan, then the director of the CIA, briefed Obama, then-Vice President Joe Biden, then-Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper, and Comey about this plan. Months later, those same people would take part in a pivotal meeting that resulted in a propaganda campaign projecting those claims as true.
Ratcliffe said that four years later, in 2020, he found Brennan’s handwritten notes that acknowledged Clinton’s plan (the notes were shown on the screen during the Bartiromo segment). By that time, though, those same people were busy concocting their next propaganda operation, the Hunter Biden Laptop hoax. And it’s only now, Ratcliffe added, after Americans reelected Trump, that “all of this evidence that’s been hidden and buried from the American people is finally coming to light.”
No Statute of Limitations
Ratcliffe said that the statute of limitations does not apply and should not shield the people he referred for criminal prosecution. He pointed out that Brennan testified to John Durham in 2020 and the House Oversight Committee in 2022, Clinton testified to Durham in 2022, and Comey testified before the Senate Committee in September 2020 with these same false claims. He also added that Clinton’s role has been verified in multiple ways, including by Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook, who testified in the Michael Sussmann trial that the former presidential candidate personally approved a plan to convince the public that the Trump team colluded with the Russians.
The new Trump DOJ, Ratcliffe said, provides an opportunity to “look at how these people really did conspire to run a hoax, fraud, on the American people and against Donald Trump’s presidency.” The CIA chief said accountability is part of the reason they’re bringing all of this to light, but so is prevention. Something like this should never happen again.
Substantial Documentation
As we pointed out in a recent edition of The New American’s Insider Report, the alleged illegal activity of the intel community “was far more extensive and more serious than previously known.” Gabbard’s document is among many others in this vein to have been recently released.
Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) announced on July 21 the release of the “Clinton Annex” to the 2018 DOJ Office of Inspector General’s findings that the FBI, under Comey, did not fully investigate Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server and mishandling of classified information when she was the secretary of state. Grassley had been asking for this classified document for seven years. Attorney General Pam Bondi finally declassified it.
Two days later, on July 23, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Rick Crawford (R-Ark.) announced the release of a 46-page report on the fabricated assessment by Obama and his intel heads — Clapper, Brennan, Comey — that Trump colluded with Russia. This report had been classified since 2017.
Intel’s “New Assessment”
As this information continues to emerge, it provides a clearer picture of how the Deep State operates. Gabbard’s report, for example, suggests that even though the intel community at large had already determined that the Russians would not affect the outcome of the 2016 election, the narrative shift happened on December 9, a month after Trump won, during a meeting between Obama and his intel chiefs. During that meeting, Obama ordered the creation of a new intelligence assessment implicating Russia in election meddling, “even though it would contradict multiple intelligence assessments released over the previous several months.”
After the meeting, then-DNI Clapper’s assistant sent out an email to DNI officials asking them to put together an “assessment per the President’s request.” In addition to the DNI’s office, other intel agencies who joined in the conspiracy included the CIA, FBI, NSA, and DHS.
Leaking to the Media
Once the conspiracy was cooked up, it was time to begin selling it to the public. After the meeting, the Deep Staters began leaking fabricated intel to the media. They leaked to The Washington Post that “Russia used ‘cyber means’ to influence ‘the outcome of the election.’”
Later that evening, they leaked again to WaPo, this time the talking point that the CIA “’concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened’ in the election to help President Trump.” A few days later, they leaked to the media again, this time claiming that “[intel] officials believe ‘with a high level of confidence’ that Russian President Vladimir Putin was personally involved in the ‘U.S. Election Hack.’”
And when anyone from within threatened their conspiracy, they pushed them out of the way. Gabbard’s report documents how a whistleblower who questioned the “new assessment” was sidelined.
Notice the conspiracy doesn’t require the involvement of everyone, only the leadership. This is the same way the Soviets operated, by infiltrating spies into influential positions.
The public now awaits the all-elusive element of accountability.
