John Durham Reveals Likely Origin of Trump–Russia Collusion Narrative

Connecticut's U.S. Attorney John Durham in 2018. (U.S. Department of Justice via AP)

Special counsel John Durham’s highly awaited report was released on Monday, in which he harshly criticized the FBI for its handling of an investigation into former President Donald Trump and noted that former CIA Director John Brennan briefed former President Barack Obama and other top national security officials regarding intelligence about a plan to “stir up a scandal” targeting Trump and Russia.

The 300-page report, which faulted the FBI for opening its probe into allegations that Trump colluded with Russia, at one point cited handwritten notes from Brennan, who had briefed Obama about the “alleged approval” by then-candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign in July 2016 of a proposal to “vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services.”

Durham specifically made mention of “highly significant intelligence” that the FBI “received from a trusted foreign source pointing to a Clinton campaign plan to vilify Trump by tying him to Vladimir Putin so as to divert attention from her own concerns relating to her use of a private email server.” During the 2016 contest, Trump and Republicans had criticized Clinton, a former secretary of state, for her use of a private server that they said was insecure and should have brought about felony charges against her.

Brennan briefed not only Obama, but also then-Vice President Joe Biden, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and FBI Director James Comey, according to Durham’s report. It suggested that top officials in the Obama administration were aware of the plan to denigrate Trump and paint him as a Russian asset, which the former president has long described as a witch hunt meant to harm him politically.

Brennan has not issued a public comment after Durham’s report was issued Monday. Neither has Clinton, Lynch, Biden, or the FBI. The Epoch Times has contacted Brennan for comment.

In a statement issued on Monday, the FBI said that it has already implemented changes to agency problems that Durham’s report singled out.

“The conduct in 2016 and 2017 that Special Counsel Durham examined was the reason that current FBI leadership already implemented dozens of corrective actions, which have now been in place for some time. Had those reforms been in place in 2016, the missteps identified in the report could have been prevented. This report 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,” the statement said.

For years during the Trump administration, corporate news outlets including MNSBC and CNN would cite unnamed sources that would criticize Trump and claim that he colluded with the Russian government. In 2019, then-special counsel Robert Mueller concluded that Trump did not collude with the Russian government but did not rule out whether he obstructed justice in connection to his investigation. Mueller did not make any mention of Brennan’s notes or briefings to Obama administration officials, however.

“We wrote a lot about Russia, and I have no regrets,” the New York Times’ executive editor, Dean Baquet, said in an interview after the Mueller report was released in 2019. “It’s not our job to determine whether or not there was illegality,” he added. CNN’s former president, Jeff Zucker, also defended his network’s coverage by saying: “We are not investigators. We are journalists, and our role is to report the facts as we know them, which is exactly what we did.”

Other Details

In Durham’s report, no charges have been recommended for any of the aforementioned individuals. Durham, a former U.S. attorney in Connecticut, also did not recommend any FBI policy changes.

But he did sharply criticize the bureau for departing from previous norms in how it opened the investigation into Trump, dubbed Crossfire Hurricane. The FBI, the report said, failed to take several necessary steps before that investigation was launched.

Former Director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) John Brennan testifies before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on Capitol Hill in Washington on May 23, 2017. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

“The speed and manner in which the FBI opened and investigated Crossfire Hurricane during the presidential election season based on raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence also reflected a noticeable departure from how it approached prior matters involving possible attempted foreign election interference plans aimed at the Clinton campaign,” his report said.

The report added: “Unlike the FBI’s opening of a full investigation of unknown members of the Trump campaign based on raw, uncorroborated information, in this separate matter involving a purported Clinton campaign plan, the FBI never opened any type of inquiry, issued any taskings, employed any analytical personnel, or produced any analytical products in connection with the information.”

The special counsel further zeroed in on former FBI official Peter Strzok and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, noting that Strzok had problems with Trump. He cited previously known text messages between Strzok and former FBI attorney Lisa Page, who have both filed lawsuits against the bureau.

“Strzok, at a minimum, had pronounced hostile feelings toward Trump,” Durham wrote.

During congressional testimony in 2020, current FBI Director Christopher Wray told lawmakers that the FBI had implemented more than 40 changes to make the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court surveillance process more stringent in response to a report released by Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz. In late 2019, the IG issued a lengthy report that found significant “errors and omissions” in how the FBI pursued FISA surveillance of the Trump campaign—namely former aide Carter Page—for the now-discredited claims that it colluded with the Russian government.

“The Department did not adequately examine or question these materials and the motivations of those providing them, even when at about the same time the Director of the FBI and others learned of significant and potentially contrary intelligence,” Durham also wrote.