A newly released declassified annex from Special Counsel John Durham’s 2023 report confirms that Hillary Clinton personally approved a plan during the 2016 election to smear then-candidate Donald Trump by promoting a false narrative linking him to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The revelation comes from documentation declassified by Sen. Chuck Grassley and sheds new light on the origins of the now-debunked Trump-Russia collusion narrative.
The annex states that Clinton greenlit a proposal by her foreign policy advisor Julianne Smith to “smear Donald Trump by magnifying the scandal tied to the intrusion by the Russian special services.” The goal was to distract voters from the mounting scandal over Clinton’s use of a private email server during her tenure as Secretary of State.
A draft memorandum included in the annex reveals that Smith’s strategy was to elevate the “Putin’s support for Trump” narrative to the level of an international sports scandal to divert public attention. It also outlines a plan to push the public into equating alleged Russian cyber activity with attacks on vital national infrastructure—an effort designed to pressure the Obama administration into a more confrontational stance toward Moscow, aligning with Clinton’s political strategy.
In a striking addition, the annex contains a March 2016 memo indicating that President Barack Obama authorized the Democratic Party leadership to use “all administrative levers” to mitigate the political fallout from ongoing FBI investigations into Clinton’s private email server and the Clinton Foundation.
Sen. Grassley condemned the FBI’s failure to investigate these intelligence leads. In his statement, Grassley said, “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’s political gain.”
He continued, “These intelligence reports and related records, whether true or false, were buried for years. History will show that the Obama and Biden administration’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies were weaponized against President Trump.”
Grassley called the matter “one of the biggest political scandals and cover-ups in American history,” and said the current Trump administration must act swiftly to repair the damage.
The Durham annex, now public, provides documented proof of a politically motivated campaign to manipulate public perception and law enforcement resources against a presidential candidate. It underscores what many conservatives have long alleged: that the Trump-Russia narrative was a deliberate misinformation campaign launched at the highest levels of the Democratic Party and protected by federal agencies.
