Durham Dismissed Clinton Email Behind ‘Collusion Hoax’ Claims as Russian Disinfo: NYT Reports
A bombshell report from The New York Times casts serious doubt on a key piece of evidence conservative media figures have cited as proof that Hillary Clinton orchestrated a scheme to falsely link Donald Trump to Russia.
The article, co-written by Charlie Savage, Adam Goldman, and Katie Benner, reveals that U.S. intelligence officials assessed the so-called “smoking gun” email as likely Russian disinformation — a finding acknowledged in Special Counsel John Durham’s records.
The email in question, highlighted in a recently released annex of Special Counsel Durham’s final report, has been embraced by right-wing media as evidence that Clinton personally approved a plan to damage Trump politically by tying him to Moscow.
But according to the Times, Durham was informed by the CIA and other intelligence agencies that Russian operatives most likely fabricated the email as part of a broader effort to undermine American democratic institutions.
Despite that, the annex has taken on new life in recent weeks. Conservative outlets and commentators have resurfaced the document as a definitive link between the Clinton campaign and the launch of the Trump-Russia investigation.
President Donald Trump has seized on the narrative, recently claiming the document is proof that former President Barack Obama should be tried for treason — a suggestion at odds with a recent Supreme Court ruling granting former presidents broad immunity for official acts.
The report establishes how the newly released information has created a news cycle promoted by the Trump administration, fostering a narrative that Hillary Clinton plotted against Trump:
Even as the releases shed more light on a seismic political period nearly a decade ago, Mr. Trump and his allies have wildly overstated what the documents show, accusing former President Barack Obama of “treason.”
The release of the annex was no exception. John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director, said in a statement that the materials proved that suspicions of Russian collusion stemmed from “a coordinated plan to prevent and destroy Donald Trump’s presidency.”
And Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, who has a long history of pushing false claims about the Russia investigation, declared on social media that the annex revealed “evidence that the Clinton campaign plotted to frame President Trump and fabricate the Russia collusion hoax.”
Crucially, the annex document is not a verified conclusion but a summary of raw intelligence released by Ratcliffe. Durham himself noted the possibility that the information was disinformation and did not rely on the email in his main report’s conclusions.
However, according to the Times, U.S. intelligence dismissed the alleged Clinton memo as “not credible” from the start, believing it to be part of a Russian effort to inflame political divisions in the U.S. The key paragraph from The New York Times report:
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.
The renewed focus on the annex illustrates how quickly ambiguous intelligence can be repurposed in the media landscape. While Durham’s investigation criticized elements of the FBI’s handling of the original Russia probe, it did not invalidate the investigation or support the claim that it was politically concocted.
As the Times report asserts, the email at the center of this latest controversy may not be evidence of Clinton malfeasance at all — but rather a calculated piece of disinformation from Russian intelligence. If accurate, that finding complicates the narrative now circulating in conservative media and raises deeper concerns about the durability of foreign influence on American political discourse.
