There have been multiple investigations already showing that Hillary Clinton, the failed Democrat nominee for president in 2016, schemed to falsely tie the eventual campaign winner, Republican Donald Trump, to Russia and its influence.
But, like the old saying, just who knew what and when is not entirely clear, and that’s the subject of a new lawsuit by government watchdog Judicial Watch to obtain handwritten notes from John Brennan, who then was Barack Obama’s CIA chief.
Brennan, of course, now is under investigation for a number of his actions during that time frame, as are other Obama officials, like ex-FBI chief James Comey.
Judicial Watch’s action is a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the CIA to obtain Brennan’s “unredacted handwritten notes and related records from White House briefings in 2016 that referenced intelligence regarding a Hillary Clinton campaign plan to link then-candidate Donald Trump to Russia.”
Clinton’s campaign also was the funding agent because the fraudulent “Steele Dossier” that also made allegations about Trump and Russia.
Judicial Watch explained, “In October 2020, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released heavily redacted handwritten notes that revealed details about Brennan’s briefing with then-President Barack Obama about Hillary Clinton’s purported plan to tie then-candidate Trump to Russia as ‘a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server’ ahead of the 2016 presidential election.”
The report said Brennan, in one note, said, “We’re getting additional insight into Russian activities from [redacted]. CITE alleged approval by Hillary Clinton on 26 July of a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security services.”
The lawsuit was filed after the CIA declined to respond to a procedural FOIA request for Brennan’s unredacted notes.
“This includes any unredacted portions of President Obama’s and FBI Director Comey’s responses, which are currently redacted in publicly available versions of the Durham report,” Judicial Watch said.
That 2023 assessment, from special counsel John Durham, states that the intelligence community immediately recognized the plan’s relevance to the presidential election. Records from Brennan’s office show he “personally received” the intelligence and reported to Obama in July 2016.
That report cites Brennan’s notes about briefing others on Clinton’s agenda.
“The Russiagate scandal was a politically driven operation. It served as an enormous deflection from Hillary Clinton’s use of a nongovernment email server, which was a serious violation of federal records laws and national security practices,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The American people deserve to know the whole story.”
