President Trump’s FBI Director Kash Patel reported on Thursday that his agency uncovered an annex, “along with thousands of other documents, buried in a back room at the FBI” which “revealed a highly classified piece of the Durham report: evidence that the Clinton campaign plotted to frame President Trump and fabricate the Russia collusion hoax.”
We uncovered this annex, along with thousands of other documents, buried in a back room at the FBI.
It revealed a highly classified piece of the Durham report: evidence that the Clinton campaign plotted to frame President Trump and fabricate the Russia collusion hoax.
We worked… https://t.co/nCM23Ff1ac
— FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) July 31, 2025
The New York Times responded to Patel’s report with the article ‘‘Clinton Plan’ Emails Were Likely Made by Russian Spies, Declassified Report Shows,’ with the subtitle “An annex to a report by the special counsel John H. Durham was the latest in a series of disclosures about the Russia inquiry, as the Trump team seeks to distract from the Jeffrey Epstein files.’”
Pulitzer Prize-winner Charlie Savage, co-writer of the Times article, added on social media: “The declassified Durham report annex shows the special counsel set out to prove the ‘Clinton Plan’ emails were real but decided they were fakes made by Russian spies. It’s amazing to see people talking about those ’emails’ as if they were real. Can people read?”
Note: Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) responded to the declassified Durham report annex and wrote: “Every American must read this report which details what could be the GREATEST SCANDAL IN AMERICAN HISTORY.”
The declassified Durham report annex shows the special counsel set out to prove the ‘Clinton Plan’ emails were real but decided they were fakes made by Russian spies.
It’s amazing to see people talking about those “emails” as if they were real. Can people read?
link follows
— Charlie Savage (@charlie_savage) August 1, 2025
Fellow Times reporter Michael S. Schmidt, author of the book Donald Trump v the United States, responded to Savage: “Kash Patel declared on social media that the annex revealed ‘evidence that the Clinton campaign plotted to frame President Trump and fabricate the Russia collusion hoax.’ In reality, the annex shows the opposite, indicating that a key piece of supposed evidence for the claim that Mrs. Clinton approved a plan to tie Mr. Trump to Russia is not credible: Mr. Durham concluded that the email from July 27, 2016, and a related one dated two days earlier were probably manufactured.”
Kash Patel declared on social media that the annex revealed “evidence that the Clinton campaign plotted to frame President Trump and fabricate the Russia collusion hoax.” In reality, the annex shows the opposite, indicating that a key piece of supposed evidence for the claim that… https://t.co/G3nr0BMEya
— Michael S. Schmidt (@nytmike) August 1, 2025
David Corn, editor in chief of Mother Jones, chimed in and wrote: “Troubling to see the FBI director brazenly lie about an important national security matter. It was no hoax Russia attacked 2016 election & Trump had odd history of praising Putin & denied Moscow involvement. Made sense for HRC to raise this issue.”
Speaking about the near consensus among American lawmakers and U.S. intelligence that Russia “most certainly tried to interfere in our election,” then-Senator Marco Rubio — now U.S. Secretary of State — said of Russian election meddling at the time: “I don’t just believe it. I know it.”
Marco Rubio on Russian interference in the 2016 election: “Russia most certainly tried to interfere in our election…They may have had a preference for Donald Trump, but I don’t think they thought he was going to win.” pic.twitter.com/UfDiKGrdx7
— Sarah Longwell (@SarahLongwell25) July 26, 2025
Special Counsel Durham, appointed by the Justice Department during the first Trump administration, investigated the handling of the alleged Trump-Russia collusion investigation known as ‘Crossfire Hurricane’ for more than three years and released a 306-page report to the public in May 2023.
Durham revealed in a footnote that as part of his investigation he had interviewed Hillary Clinton in May 2022 about the so-called “Clinton Plan Intelligence” often mentioned in his report.
The ‘Clinton Plan Intelligence’ concerned intelligence derived from Russian intelligence sources (by way of Dutch spies) that suggested an alleged attempt by Clinton to tar Trump with insinuations of Russian collusion — or “vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security services.”
After years of investigation and speaking directly with Clinton about the ‘Clinton Plan Intelligence’ — information that Durham’s report, quoting former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, said might be a “fabrication” — the Special Counsel concluded that the line of inquiry “did not, all things considered, amount to a provable criminal offense.”