CIA Director John Ratcliffe suggested on Sunday that more documents will soon be released that allegedly link Hillary Clinton to the discredited claims of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
He referred to “underlying intelligence” cited in the annex of Special Counsel John Durham’s report, which examined the investigations surrounding the 2016 race between Clinton and Donald Trump. The intelligence is currently undergoing declassification.
“What hasn’t come out yet and what’s going to come out is the underlying intelligence,” Ratcliffe said on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures.
“And what that intelligence shows, Maria, is that part of this was a Hillary Clinton plan, but part of it was an FBI plan to be an accelerant to that fake Steele dossier, to those fake Russia collusion claims by pouring oil on the fire, by amplifying the lie and bearing the truth of what Hillary Clinton was up to.”
During the 2016 campaign, a file compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele circulated within U.S. intelligence circles. That opposition research was ultimately funded by the Clinton campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and the Washington Free Beacon.
Though largely discredited, the Steele dossier was used as part of the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation into alleged Russian election meddling.
Special Counsel Durham, appointed during Trump’s first term, sharply criticized the FBI’s handling of the case in his 2023 report, which is partially public.
“In the summer of 2016, U.S. intelligence intercepted Russian intelligence talking about a Hillary Clinton plan, a Hillary Clinton plan to falsely accuse Donald Trump of Russia collusion, to vilify him and smear him with what would become known infamously as the — as the Steele dossier,” Ratcliffe recounted.
He said he reviewed former CIA Director John Brennan’s handwritten notes to uncover the “underlying intelligence behind it that revealed exactly what happened.”
“All of this evidence that’s been hidden and buried from the American people is finally coming to light,” Ratcliffe said.
Some officials from the Obama administration, which was in office at the time, have denied that the Steele dossier initiated the Russia probe.
“There is no doubt in my mind that the people that we just talked about conspired. They conspired against President Trump. They conspired against the American people,” Ratcliffe said.
He added that both he and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard had submitted referrals to the Justice Department based on their findings.
“I don’t think statute of limitations are going to impact [it] because, on the conspiracy, the statute of limitation doesn’t start to run until the last act in furtherance of that conspiracy,” he said. “The people behind this are still furthering the conspiracy. They’re refusing to admit or acknowledge what they did … was wrong.”
Gabbard recently declassified a series of documents, including a 2020 House Intelligence Committee report which found insufficient evidence that Russia favored Trump in the 2016 race.
She also released information showing that intelligence agencies had evidence Russia did not manipulate voting systems in a way that could have altered the election outcome.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has formed a “strike force” at the Justice Department to review the referrals from Gabbard and Ratcliffe.
