More on the release of the classified "annex" withheld by the FBI that shows the plot

The post below is edited from law professor Jonathan Turley's column on the release of the previously-classified "annex" to the Durham report:

Yesterday the FBI released a previously classified "annex" to the Durham report on the investigation into charges that Trump colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election from Hilliary.

After the release, former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper wrote in the New York Times denying allegations and insisting they never relied on a work of fiction called the "Steele dossier."

That's a proven lie, but the Times still printed their false claim despite being demonstrably untrue.  The pair's column reaffirmed the level of dishonesty and duplicity that marked their tenures in office.

The newly-released documents quote Brennan overruling career analysts and insisting that the dossier be included in the intelligence assessment.  Even after leaving office, Brennan continued to push the false collusion claim.  The fake dossier was used to feed the brazen claim that Trump was a Russian asset.

The declassified annex shows further evidence of a secret plan by the Clinton campaign to use the FBI and media to spread a false claim that Donald Trump was a Russian asset. With this material, the public is finally seeing how officials and reporters set into motion what may be the greatest hoax ever perpetrated in American politics.

Trump never colluded with Russia.  Instead the Clinton campaign, the FBI, Brennan and Clapper created a Narrative of collusion--which the Media eagerly parroted.  This cunning hoax crippled much of Trump's first term.

What is emerging in these documents is the story of a fake Narrative--an illusion, carefully constructed by corrupt intel officials (Brennan, Clapper, Comey and a handful of minor players like Bruce and Nellie Orr) and a willing media.  The brilliance of the conspirators was getting reporters to believe the lie--which they eagerly did.

The first act was when the Clinton campaign secretly funded the Steele dossier, via two "cutouts:" using a DC law firm (Perkins Coie) to pay a group called "Fusion GPS," which paid a former British spy named Christopher Steele to create a salacious account of Trump cavorting with Russian prostitutes in a Moscow hotel.  The implication was that the KGB had video of the romp, so could now blackmail Trump into doing Putin's bidding.

Emails in the just-released annex state that Hillary Clinton personally approved the operation.  Could they be fake?  Of course--but the FBI never tried to authenticate them, merely dismissing 'em as "Russian disinformation."

During the campaign a few reporters asked about the possible connection between the Clinton campaign and the fabricated "Steele dossier," but Clinton campaign officials denied any involvement. After the election, journalists discovered that the campaign had hidden payment to Steele for the dossier as “legal fees” among the $5.6 million paid to Perkins Coie under Democrat fixer Marc Elias.

When New York Times reporter Ken Vogel tried to report the story, he said, Elias “pushed back vigorously, saying ‘You (or your sources) are wrong.’” Times reporter Maggie Haberman declared, “Folks involved in funding this lied about it, and with sanctimony, for a year.”

Later the chairman of Clinton’s campaign,  John Podesta, appeared before Congress and was asked whether the campaign had anything to do with the Steele dossier. Podesta emphatically denied any contractual agreement with Fusion GPS. Sitting beside him was Elias, who reportedly said nothing to correct that lie to Congress.

The FEC ultimately sanctioned the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee for funding the creation of the dossier.

After paying to create the fake "dossier," the Clinton team worked quietly to feed the dossier to the FBI. 

The newly released evidence shows that in July of 2016 Brennan briefed then- president Obama on Hillary’s plan to tie then-candidate Trump to Russia as a way to distract voters from her use of a private, unsecured email server in her home in New York.  

Months later, in January of 2021, after Trump unexpectedly won the election, Obama asked Brennan, Clapper and Comey to find evidence that Trump had colluded with Russia.  CIA analysts said they found no evidence of collusion, but Brennan overruled his own analysts and used the dossier to support the Narrative that Trump "colluded with Russia."

Career analysts objected that relying on the unverified, sole-source Steele dossier was a huge error and undermined the new "official" conclusion.  One CIA analyst told investigators that Brennan "refused to remove it, and when confronted with the dossier’s main flaws, responded, ‘Yes, but doesn’t it ring true?’”

That's a huge key to the success of the hoax:  It only had to be plausible enough to get the Media to sign on, and to fool the public.  The first was easy, since the Media hated Trump and loved Hilliary.  And once the Media signed on, convincing Democrats was easy.

The plot was designed to cripple the incoming Trump administration and prevent any reforms during what the Dems were sure would be just 4 years--and it worked.  In the end, both Special Counsel Mueller and the DOJ Inspector General found no evidence of Russian collusion, but by then the damage was done, and bribem won in 2020.

Reports indicate that the CIA is about to declassify material showing that foreign sources were aware of the move to create a Russia-collusion scandal, and expected that the FBI would play a role in the plan.  One source said the foreign intelligence predicted the move “with alarming specificity.”

For example, emails from Leonard Bernardo, a VP of Soros's Open Society Foundation explained that “during the first stage of the campaign, due to lack of direct evidence, it was decided to disseminate the necessary information through the FBI…from where the information would then be disseminated through leading U.S. publications.”

Bernardo added, “Julie (Clinton Campaign Advisor) says it will be a long-term affair to demonize Putin and Trump. Now it is good for a post-convention bounce.  Later, the FBI will put more oil into the fire.”

The Washington Post and New York Times both won Pulitzer prizes for reporting on the claims that Trump both colluded with Putin AND was "a Russian asset," so both are trying hard to wave away these latest releases of previously secret material.  They don't want to report that they helped sell a political hoax as truth. That is why they cannot honestly cover the story. To do so would not be coverage, it would be a confession.

It appears that everyone was in on the trick: the U.S. government, the media, even foreign governments. The only chumps were the American people. Now we're slowly beginning to see how it was done.

Source: Jonathan Turley (edited by me)

https://jonathanturley.org/2025/08/01/the-reveal-the-public-is-finally-learning-how-democrats-pulled-off-the-greatest-political-trick-in-history/