Jesse Watters Makes WILDLY Unfounded Claim That Hillary Paid Hackers to Plant Evidence on Trump
Jesse Watters falsely claimed that Hillary Clinton paid hackers to plant fake evidence in an effort to show Donald Trump colluded with the Russian government. The Fox News host then used his mischaracterization of the filing to state as fact that Clinton had attempted to frame Trump.
On Friday, Special Counsel John Durham filed a motion alleging that Clinton hired a tech executive with legal access to non-public, non-private internet data, some of which was allegedly used in an effort to link Trump to Russia. That executive has elsewhere been confirmed to be Rodney Joffe.
Durham is investigating the probe into Trump that culminated in the Mueller Report, which found no evidence Trump conspired with Russia, but that Trump nonetheless welcomed the country’s help during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Watters is certainly not alone among conservative media figures making sensationalistic and false claims about the filing, but the allegation that fake evidence was planted stands out. On Monday, he told his audience,
Durham’s documents show that Hillary Clinton hired people who hacked into Trump’s home and office computers before and during his presidency, and planted evidence that he colluded with Russia.
Yeah. You heard that right. Hillary broke into a presidential candidate’s computer server and a sitting president’s computer server, spying on them. There, her hackers planted evidence, fabricated evidence connecting Trump to Russia, then fed that doctored material to the feds and the media.
The problem is that Durham’s documents don’t show this – at all.
Instead, the filing adds some detail to the indictment of Michael Sussmann, who had requested a meeting with the FBI to present the agency with evidence he said suggested that Trump had colluded with Russia. Sussmann told the FBI at the time that he was not working for “any client,” but Durham maintains Sussmann was actually working for the Clinton campaign. As a result, Sussmann was charged with making a false statement to the FBI.
Rather than an elaborate hacking scheme, Durham states that Sussmann and a tech executive had access to certain non-public Internet data and that the tech exec “exploited” this by passing on data to the Clinton campaign.
The filing further states,
The Government’s evidence at trial will also establish that among the Internet data Tech Executive-1 and his associates exploited was domain name system (“DNS”) Internet traffic pertaining to (i) a particular healthcare provider, (ii) Trump Tower, (iii) Donald Trump’s Central Park West apartment building, and (iv) the Executive Office of the President of the United States (“EOP”). (Tech Executive-1’s employer, Internet Company-1, had come to access and maintain dedicated servers for the EOP as part of a sensitive arrangement whereby it provided DNS resolution services to the EOP. Tech Executive-1 and his associates exploited this arrangement by mining the EOP’s DNS traffic and other data for the purpose of gathering derogatory information about Donald Trump.)
FoxNews.com reported the story about the Durham filing on Friday, and noted Sussmann had repeatedly billed the Clinton campaign. Neither the Fox News story, nor Durham’s motion contain any allegations of hacking, fabricating, or planting evidence.
Moreover, Durham hasn’t brought hacking-related charges against anyone. Were he to do so, the matter would still have to be litigated in a court of law.
Watch above via Fox News.
