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EXCLUSIVE: U.S. intelligence had credible foreign sources indicating that the FBI would play a role in spreading the salacious Trump-Russia collusion narrative—before the bureau ever launched its controversial Crossfire Hurricane probe, sources familiar with the intel told Fox News Digital.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe is expected to declassify the underlying intelligence, including a classified annex, related to former Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia probe.
A source familiar with the contents of the classified annex told Fox News Digital that while it may not have been exactly clear in the moment what the intelligence collection meant, with the benefit of hindsight, it predicted the FBI’s next move “with alarming specificity.”
CIA Director John Ratcliffe, joined at center by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, testifies as the Senate Intelligence Committee holds its worldwide threats hearing, on Capitol Hill in Washington, on Tuesday, March 25. (AP/J. Scott Applewhite)
“Ultimately, the release of the classified annex will lend more credibility to the assertion that there was a coordinated plan inside the U.S. government to help the Clinton campaign stir up controversy connecting Trump to Russia,” the source, who was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters that have not yet been made public, told Fox News Digital.
“Mere days after this intelligence was collected, the FBI launched Crossfire Hurricane,” the source said. “It’s really hard to see how Brennan, Clapper and Comey are going to be able to explain this away.”
In 2020, Fox News Digital exclusively reported that former CIA Director John Brennan, in the summer of 2016, briefed former President Barack Obama and administration officials on intelligence that then-Democratic nominee former Secretary of State Clinton was stirring up a plan to tie Trump to Russia.
President Barack Obama nominates John Brennan, to be CIA director during an event in the East Room at the White House on Jan. 7, 2013, in Washington, D.C. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
Ratcliffe, as director of national intelligence, declassified Brennan’s handwritten notes memorializing that meeting, which were exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital in October 2020.
On July 28, 2016, Brennan briefed Obama on a plan from one of Clinton’s campaign foreign policy advisors “to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service.”
Comey, then-Vice President Joe Biden, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, were at the Brennan-Obama briefing.
After that briefing, the CIA properly forwarded that information through a Counterintelligence Operational Lead (CIOL) to Comey and then-Deputy Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Peter Strzok, with the subject line: “Crossfire Hurricane.”
Fox News Digital exclusively obtained and reported on the CIOL in October 2020, which stated: “The following information is provided for the exclusive use of your bureau for background investigative action or lead purposes as appropriate.”
President Barack Obama speaks to the media after meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch (left) and FBI Director James Comey in the Oval Office at the White House July 19, 2016, in Washington, D.C. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
“Per FBI verbal request, CIA provides the below examples of information the CROSSFIRE HURRICANE fusion cell has gleaned to date,” the memo continued. “An exchange (REDACTED) discussing US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s approval of a plan concerning US presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian hackers hampering US elections as a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server.”
The FBI on July 31, 2016, opened a counterintelligence investigation into whether candidate Trump and members of his campaign were colluding or coordinating with Russia to influence the 2016 campaign. That investigation was referred to inside the bureau as “Crossfire Hurricane.”
The source told Fox News Digital on Monday that the declassification and release of the classified annex is being done with close coordination between Ratcliffe, FBI Director Kash Patel, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and acting National Security Agency Director William Hartman— along with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, who will ultimately release the document to the public.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, center, is flanked by FBI Director Kash Patel, left, and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, as the Senate Intelligence Committee holds its worldwide threats hearing, on Capitol Hill in Washington, on Tuesday, March 25. All three answered questions about the Signal text chain leak. (AP/J. Scott Applewhite)
A source familiar told Fox News Digital that the CIA and NSA have signed off on declassifying their sensitive intelligence that serves as the basis for the classified annex’s findings.
Meanwhile, while Ratcliffe was director of National Intelligence in 2020, he provided intelligence to Durham as part of a larger trove of more than 1,000 documents.
FLASHBACK: RATCLIFFE SAYS ODNI HAS PROVIDED NEARLY 1,000 DOCUMENTS TO DOJ TO SUPPORT DURHAM PROBE
A former senior Trump official told Fox News Digital that Ratcliffe advocated for releasing the intelligence publicly then, but that Durham, who, at the time, was expected to release an interim report prior to the 2020 election, declined on the basis that it could negatively impact his investigation, which had not yet reached a determination on potential prosecutions.
“Durham said he wanted to preserve his investigation but was going to release an interim report,” the former official told Fox News Digital. “Then he said he was afraid he’d get accused of politicization and disappeared.”
The source added: “Thankfully the real politicization is all coming to light now.”
Special Counsel John Durham indicated the Department of Justice and FBI “failed to uphold their mission of strict fidelity to the law” when it launched the Trump-Russia investigation. (Ron Sachs/Consolidated News Pictures/Getty Images)
Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller was appointed to take over the FBI’s original “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation. After nearly two years, Mueller’s investigation, which concluded in March 2019, yielded no evidence of criminal conspiracy or coordination between the Trump campaign and Russian officials during the 2016 presidential election.
EXCLUSIVE: FBI LAUNCHES CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS OF JOHN BRENNAN, JAMES COMEY: DOJ SOURCES
Shortly after, John Durham was appointed as special counsel to investigate the origins of the “Crossfire Hurricane” probe.
Durham found that the FBI “failed to act” on a “clear warning sign” that the bureau was the “target” of a Clinton-led effort to “manipulate or influence the law enforcement process for political purposes” ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
“The aforementioned facts reflect a rather startling and inexplicable failure to adequately consider and incorporate the Clinton Plan intelligence into the FBI’s investigative decision-making in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation,” Durham’s report states.
Robert Mueller, former special counsel for the U.S. Department of Justice. (AP newsroom | Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images | Mike Cohen/Getty Images for The New York Times)
“Indeed, had the FBI opened the Crossfire Hurricane investigation as an assessment and, in turn, gathered and analyzed data in concert with the information from the Clinton Plan intelligence, it is likely that the information received would have been examined, at a minimum, with a more critical eye,” the report continued.
Durham, in his report, said the FBI “failed to act on what should have been—when combined with other incontrovertible facts— a clear warning sign that the FBI might then be the target of an effort to manipulate or influence the law enforcement process for political purposes during the 2016 presidential election.”
On Sunday, during an interview with Maria Bartiromo on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” Ratcliffe previewed the declassification and the release of the “classified annex” to the Durham report. Ratcliffe said it would be an overview of Durham’s findings.
“What the intelligence shows..is that part of this was a Hillary Clinton plan, but part of it was an FBI plan to be an accelerant to the fake Steele dossier, to those fake Russia collusion claims by pouring oil on the fire, by amplifying the lie and burying the truth of what Hillary Clinton was up to,” Ratcliffe said.
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The expected release of the declassified annex comes after Ratcliffe and Gabbard released declassified records revealing that Obama administration officials “manufactured” intelligence to push the Trump-Russia collusion narrative.
FBI Director Kash Patel has opened criminal investigations into Brennan and Comey, and Gabbard sent criminal referrals to additional Obama-era officials.
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