Legislative Blog

J.B. Williams, J.D.

Declassified Durham Annex

A Blog about Durham Report

A Bit of Background

The following backgrounds help summarize the author's views on both the general topic: Other and more specifically Durham Report as it relates to that topic.

Brief Summary of Other

Topics here may be related to legal matters but not innately legal. For instance, discussing grocery plastic bags versus cotton cloth bags. The item itself is not legal but many city governments have placed it into legislation.

Summary of Durham Report

The Durham report is the attempt to review what occurred during Crossfire Hurricane. It shows major fails on the part of the FBI to remain non-political and significantly harms their reputation. It makes Watergate look like child's play, even if taken in a light most favorable to the FBI.

Blog Summary

Investigative referral of possible Clinton campaign plan and Page FISA application renewals

Declassified Durham Annex

Published: 2025-08-13

Declassified Durham Annex

Investigative referral of possible Clinton campaign plan

Starting in 2014 and continuing through 2016, Russian intelligence services hacked and gained unlawful access to emails of US public and private entities. These entities included government agencies, non-profit organizations, and think tanks. One of the non-profits was the Open Society Foundations, formerly known as the Soros Foundation. Information was included in this report concerning email memoranda involving Bernardo (with Open Society Foundations), Jeffrey Goldstein (senior public advisor for Eurasia at the Open Society Foundation), and Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. What was considered relevant parts were included in this report. The memorandum was from 2016, and is discussing the possible corruption at the Department of State under Hillary Clinton. Specifically the preferential treatment of Clinton Foundation donors, which the DNC had known about since 2015. And that Wasserman-Schultz said the FBI does not have persuasive information because of timely deletion of relevant data from mail servers. The message claims President Obama was putting pressure on Comey and AG Lynch so that is presidency was not surrounded by scandal.

Further the memorandum claims that Wasserman-Schultz said that President Obama sanctioned the use of all administrative levers to remove any possible negative effects relating to the Clinton Foundation and the email correspondence in the State Department. The Clinton political director was kept apprised by AG Lynch on the plans and intentions of the FBI. (The FBI decided to not determine whether or not this was true.) And Clinton staff was investigating business relations with Trump and anyone that could be considered Russian Mafia. It went further to state the Fusion GPS was preparing open source opposition research regarding Trump's ties to Russian oligarchs. This information was considered not credible by the FBI. The following lists the reasons it was not credible:

1. Reports had multiple levels of hearsay
2. Someone passing the information may have exaggerated
3. The reports were edited and may have been editorialized or exaggerated during the edit.
4. There may be translation errors

In July 2016,information was provided to the FBI that the Clinton campaign plan was to smear Trump by magnifying a scandal tied to the intrusion of Russian special services into the pre-election process, claiming it was the assist Republicans. This would distract from the Clinton email server issue. And the slow reaction of the administration surrounding the DNC email hacking would be used to support their claims. The Clinton campaign was aware that the FBI lacked conclusive evidence that Russia had hacked the DNC correspondence. Further the Clinton campaign plan was to disseminate the initial information regarding hacking through Crowdstrike and ThreatConnect Companies. Any future propaganda concerning Russia could lead to the US intensifying confrontation with Russia.

The Atlantic Council, a think tank based in Washington D.C., and Endowment for International Peace were referenced in this memorandum as well. There is also a message directly from Benardo included. It references the hacking as being the start of a long term affair to demonize Putin and Trump, and states the FBI will put more oil on the fire later (based upon what Clinton political advisor said). Regardless this will negatively affect the US-Russian relations.

Additional correspondence states the they can further the Russia angle by using Clinton sympathizers in the IC, Pentagon, Deep State; and that Russia is attempting to undermine good elections for the benefit of Trump. Further email from Bernado states that Trump/Russia hacker will distract from Clinton missing email and that playing it up as critical infrastructure threat to election should escalate it. And if there is no valid intelligence that Crowdstrike and ThreatConnect can supply it.

During the initial investigation it was stated that it was likely these emails were authentic and that Russia had hacked Bernado's emails. While the non-profits were not able to produce the identical emails, they did provide emails that had items as quoted from Bernado and they matched exactly. Bernardo did deny writing the emails, claiming he would not have used terms like 'oil into the fire' but would have used 'things are ghastly for US-Russia relations'. Maurer stated he did not write the emails purported to be his but acknowledged one as real and one to be identical to one he had written. Smith, the Clinton political manager, denied drafting or receiving the emails. She further said he never proposed tying Trump and Putin to Clinton or campaign leadership. She did say she may have proposed ideas, that were approved, along those lines.

Clinton, John Podesta (campaign chair), and Jake Sullivan (senior policy advisor) all claimed to have never seen the emails and that it looked like Russian disinformation. Sullivan stated that there was no plan regarding Trump and Russia, although the campaign focused on Trump. While it may have been an attempt to distract from the email server issue, Sullivan stated he had not heard that was true but couldn't rule it out as possible. Jennifer Palmeieri (communications director) stated she was aware of Perkins Coie project concerning Trump and Russia, but she did not think Clinton was.

The FBI apparently did have text messages supporting some knowledge of what was happening with the push on Trump and Putin. And that they believed the emails were compilations of Bernado emails brought to the FBI from an informant that got them from the Russian hack. And they believed Smith was involved. They were aware that this information was presented to President Obama - concerning the Clinton campaign plan to push the Trump Russia election interference. The CIA, in 2017, analysis report stated they did not believe this email/memorandum information to be fabricated.

FISA to gather email concerning possible Clinton campaign plan was delayed by 11 months, and was not sought until Clinton and others were advised. This was after the FBI received information that was confirmed by 2 other sources.

Page FISA application renewals

Page was not interviewed by FBI leadership, even though he volunteered. He was not interviewed until March 2017. Page was never ask about the emails contained in the report, and it's unclear why not. These emails were contained in the Page FISA applications 3 of 4 times; and 2 of the FISA were done after Page was interviewed.

In testimony with the House Select Committee on Intelligence, Page states that his insights were his from reading items in the press and such. Page specifically states he was not 'meeting' with anyone in an administration. Page admitted he only interacted with a Russian member of parliament staffer in a brief encounter and shook hands with Deputy Prime Minister Dvorkovich during his trip to Russia. Otherwise he said he had no interactions with the Russian government during the trip. However, the FBI stated in their FISA application renewals that Page's email referenced meetings with Russian government officials, including legislatures and members of the Presidential administration (specifically Sechin and Divyekin). The FBI, in fact, stated Page had meet with Secin during a post-election trip to Russia; but this was untrue based upon the transcript of the meeting with Page. This means that the Crossfire Hurricane investigators never reviewed the materials or never reported the falsity.

Mueller's investigation reviewed information from Klimentov regarding Page's trip to Russia; wherein Klimentov states it was unlikely Page met with Secin. This as disregarded as Klimentov just not knowing.

Conclusions

I'm not certain why this information was not declassified and released previously. It starts with a section providing a basis for where some information was received - Russian emails (interpreted) that were reviewing hacked emails from Open Society Foundation (previously Soros Foundation). It shows connectivity between this entity and the Clinton campaign. And the fact that an initial report and, a later 2017, follow up report found the information to be reliable makes it's non-release extremely suspect. Since, in criminal trials, the prosecutor must release information to the defense, there seems to be little reason this was not included.

I still find it odd that Page was not interviewed by the FBI sooner, especially since Page volunteered to be interviewed. The lack of follow up regarding the information contained in the FISA applications is horrendous. Either they knew and kept quiet, or they failed to do their job. Whichever, the least they deserve is to be fired and never have a government job of any kind, and to loose their retirement benefits.

The new rules to 'ensure this does not happen in the future' are all hogwash. They objectively disregarded the rules previously, and it will happen in the future. Unfortunately people are more than willing to throw out the rules when they feel this issue is bigger than this and requires breaking the rules. Sadly it is the absolute time when following every rule is the most important thing you can do. I know judges who have recused themselves when there is the mildly hint they may be biased, even when the claim of why seems to lack credibility. For the sake of the system, you need to both be not biased and appear to not be biased.

There are times when I think, the rules have always been broken going the other way so why not break them in this direction. But doing so means neither side has a leg to stand on, and you are both just being petty and vindictive. That behavior can destroy our Constitutional Republic faster than anything.

Sadly, we as a society, have gotten to the point that when things are difficult you must forgive everyone for not following the rules or for what they have done - unless, of course, the press says otherwise. When it becomes difficult to follow the rules of your profession, look to the rules and follow them. I'm not saying to follow blindly but work within the rules to see if they need to be modified or if you just want to be contrary because you personally don't agree. And when you cannot follow those rules, quit.

There is more information in my other Durham report blogs, specifically my conclusion in the previous Durham blog

Just a brief reminder in case you don't want to go read the conclusion:

Finally there were problems with FISA applications which points to bias and other factors. The 29 applications contained 209 errors, 4 of which were deemed material. And this is without even viewing information that may have been omitted. In the 4 Page applications there were 17 material errors and omissions. In a light most favorable to the Crossfire Hurricane team, confirmation bias played a significant role in acceptance of extraordinarily serious allegations derived from uncorroborated information that was not subjected to typical analysis. In short, the Office's assessment showed the FBI 'discounted or willfully ignored information that did not support the narrative of a collusive relationship between Trump and Russia. It has been proposed to create a non-partisan position for an FBI agent or lawyer that would challenge FISA applications and every other stage of investigations. As former Attorney General Levi warned, 'Nothing can weaken the quality of life or more peril the realization of the goals we all hold dear than our failure to make clear by words and deeds that our law is not the instrument of partisan purpose.'

 

J.B. Williams, J.D.

4,312 federal laws were passed from 1995 through December 2016.
Along with 88,819 federal rules and regulations.