John Durham finds Obama, Biden were briefed on Trump-Russia collusion hoax and allowed contrived investigation anyway
By jdheyes // 2023-05-17
 
Though most Republicans were already convinced that former President Barack Obama and his No. 2, then-Vice President Joe Biden, were in on the Trump-Russia collusion "hoax" along with Hillary Clinton's campaign, a new report that dropped on Monday from special counsel John Durham makes it official. And let's be crystal clear before we go any further: While Democrats continue to scream about how Donald Trump tried to 'interfere' with the 2020 election, the fact is that Obama, Biden, their administration, and Hillary Clinton did interfere with the 2016 election. According to the more than 300-word report, then-CIA Director John Brennan personally briefed Obama and Biden in 2016. The briefing revealed that the CIA possessed evidence suggesting Clinton's intentions to falsely connect then-presidential candidate Trump with Russia. The report said Brennan's information was contained in “highly significant intelligence” 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," Breitbart News reported, citing Durham's conclusions. Shortly after receiving the tip, Brennan briefed not only Obama and Biden but also then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch, then-FBI Director James Comey, and several other high-ranking government officials just a few days after the initial information was received. Handwritten notes from Brennan indicated he briefed the Oval Office attendees about the “alleged approval by Hillary Clinton on July 26, 2016, of a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisors to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services,” the report said. More than anything, this indicated that Clinton knew without any doubt she could not beat Trump in a head-to-head matchup, which turned out to be the case. That was proven again by her (and her Democratic Party) claiming after Trump won that his victory was "illegitimate." Brennan conducted the briefing on August 3, 2016, in the White House Situation Room, Durham reported. The purpose of the meeting was to provide a comprehensive update on the intelligence available at that time regarding Russian election interference. As per the report, the CIA went as far as sending an official written referral to James Comey, then-FBI Director, and Peter Strzok, who served as the Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division, urging them to review and take necessary action based on the intelligence concerning Clinton's alleged plan. But they never did, so the plan to falsely smear Trump went ahead. In fact, Obama's FBI opened a "Russian collusion" probe into Trump that everyone knew was bogus at the time, Durham found. “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 report said. The disclosure implies that despite being aware of the Clinton-connected origins of the allegations regarding Russian collusion in the Trump campaign, Obama and Biden did not take any action or openly acknowledge this information. Furthermore, they continued to lie by claiming that Russia was interfering in the election. On July 25, 2019, after Biden had begun his presidential campaign, he noted on Twitter: “Russia undermined our democracy by interfering in the 2016 election. That’s a fact. We need a President who will stand up to the Kremlin, push back against Putin, and take immediate steps to ensure the security of our elections.” ' We know now, of course, that this was a sick lie -- even if most of us were sure by that time anyway. In October 2019, Biden promoted the falsehood that Trump had colluded with Russia, tweeting a remark made by Trump during his campaign, "Russia if you're listening," which was intended as a joke pertaining to Clinton's missing emails from her private server. U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., is calling for prosecutions, including that of Clinton. “There needs to be a lot more than reports, Jesse. People need to be prosecuted for this. The Clinton campaign and Hillary Clinton herself. Is it any coincidence that she is tweeting about collusion at exactly the same time her campaign operatives are feeding this BS to the FBI? I don’t think so. There needs to be consequences for her and also for the FBI,” he told Fox News’ Jesse Watters on Monday. “We’ve got to get justice here, and justice needs to be served. You can’t interfere in a presidential election without consequences. At least you couldn’t, you used to not be able to in America. And that’s what happened here. That’s what this report shows. That one political party, the Democrats, tried to use the FBI to rig a presidential election and just about got away with it. They succeeded in getting the FBI to intervene," he continued. “They succeeded in getting the FBI to lie to a court to get wiretaps. They succeeded in getting a presidential campaign Donald Trump’s campaign spied on. I mean, it’s amazing. If there’s something like this in American history, I don’t know what it is. And that’s why I say there needs to be prosecutions,” Hawley added. Sources include: Breitbart.com USAJournal.com