Bondi vows indictment against Comey is just the start in effort to 'end the weaponization'

Attorney General Pam Bondi vowed that the Justice Department’s indictment of fired FBI Director James Comey is the first salvo in the Trump Administration’s battle to “end the politicization” of the DOJ and the intelligence community, following months of declassifications and criminal referrals related to the targeting of Donald Trump by the Biden-era DOJ. That legal warfare centered on false claims of Russian collusion serving as the pretext.

The FBI opened a “grand conspiracy” case earlier this year, Just the News reported, with the inquiry allegedly focused on a decade of Democratic Party and deep-state antics from the Trump-Russia collusion hoax to former DOJ lawyer Jack Smith, who was accused by a Senate committee in February of having withheld documents he was required to hand over to Trump's then-defense attorneys. 

Bondi: "The weaponization has ended"

This opens the door for a sweeping inquiry into whether the well-documented episodes amount to a criminal conspiracy to meddle in three U.S. elections to the benefit of Democrats and the detriment of President Donald Trump.

“Donald Trump is in office and the weaponization has ended. We’ve made that very clear. Whether you’re a former FBI director, whether you’re a former head of the intel community, whether you’re a current state or local elected official, whether you’re a billionaire funding organizations to try to keep Donald Trump out of office — everything is on the table,” Bondi told Fox News on Friday. “We will investigate you and we will end the weaponization. No longer will there be a two-tier system of justice. And we are working hand-in-hand — Director Patel and I and Todd Blanche — with our incredible intel community, Tulsi Gabbard and John Ratcliffe, going non-stop around the clock. People will be held accountable.”

A host of various troves of records declassified this year have especially shone a further light on the politicized nature of the Obama intelligence community’s mishandling of the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) on Russia’s alleged meddling during the 2016 election. Records declassified by FBI Director Kash Patel earlier this year related to the FBI’s flawed Trump-Russia investigation also revealed new details about the politicized inquiry into Trump.

Beyond Comey, there has been a significant focus recently on ex-CIA Director John Brennan’s actions related to the ICA and British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s anti-Trump dossier, President Barack Obama’s role with the ICA, actions carried out by other intelligence officials, and more.

“We are investigating all the weaponization and all the wrongdoing that has happened. We are issuing subpoenas. We are looking at things around this country. People have to be held accountable. … No one is above the law,” Bondi said on Friday.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told Patel during a hearing last month that “I think Mr. Brennan has some explaining to do, frankly, what happened there. And I think you said earlier that this whole thing … is being looked at as part of this grand conspiracy to undermine the President [Trump] — whether it's Comey, Brennan, Clapper, former head of the Intelligence Committee [Schiff], now senator from [California] … Whoever it is, that's all being looked at. Is that accurate?”

Patel replied, “Yes sir.”

The FBI director also told the House that “we found a lot of information in a lot of burn bags” at FBI headquarters as he promised further declassifications and accountability.

“A very liberal grand jury in one of the most liberal jurisdictions in the country just indicted James Comey,” Bondi told Fox News last week. “Now, we know of course that we have to go to trial, we will have a great trial team, and everyone of course is innocent until proven guilty. However, we are going to trial in this case, and this is just the beginning.”

Comey indicted for allegedly lying about leaking to his pal

The Trump DOJ’s indictment, approved by a federal grand jury last month, stems from allegations that Comey misled the Senate during his testimony in late September 2020, when he reiterated his May 2017 denial that he had ever authorized a leak of information to the media about the Trump-Russia investigation or Clinton-related investigations. The short and simple indictment also alleged that Comey had obstructed Congress by lying to the Senate. 

The indictment specifies two counts: False statements within the jurisdiction of the legislative branch of the United States Government (18 U.S.C. § 1001(a)(2)) and Obstruction of a Congressional proceeding (18 U.S.C. § 1505). Multiple sources told Just the News that Comey authorized his personal advisor and friend Daniel Richman to leak to the press. 

Comey, fired as FBI director in the spring of 2017 by President Trump, oversaw the politicized investigation into Hillary Clinton's illicit use of a private email server to send classified information and the baseless Trump-Russia collusion inquiry.

The indictment was brought by interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Lindsey Halligan, the former Trump personal attorney lawyer and White House aide replaced Erik S. Siebert, who resigned last month, allegedly under pressure from the Trump administration to bring charges against Comey.

​​Comey said on Instagram last week after the indictment was announced: "My heart is broken for the Department of Justice, but I have great confidence in the federal judicial system.” The fired FBI chief added: “And I’m innocent. So let’s have a trial. And keep the faith.”

An executive order issued by Trump and a memo by Bondi both regarding the end of “weaponization” within the Justice Department could provide guidance in pursuing lawfare conspiracy cases.

Trump’s executive order on “Ending the Weaponization of The Federal Government” was issued on Inauguration Day in January.

“The American people have witnessed the previous administration engage in a systematic campaign against its perceived political opponents, weaponizing the legal force of numerous Federal law enforcement agencies and the Intelligence Community against those perceived political opponents in the form of investigations, prosecutions, civil enforcement actions, and other related actions,” Trump said. 

Bondi’s follow-up DOJ-wide memo on “Restoring the Integrity and Credibility of the Department of Justice” was issued in early February, and it established the “Weaponization Working Group” which Bondi said “will conduct a review of the activities of all departments and agencies exercising civil or criminal enforcement authority of the United States over the last four years […] to identify instances where a department's or agency's conduct appears to have been designed to achieve political objectives or other improper aims rather than pursuing justice or legitimate governmental objectives.”

The Clinton Plan and the Durham Report

The grand jury that indicted Comey for lying to Congress rejected one count brought by the Trump DOJ, allowing the ex-bureau chief to dodge a false statement charge over his claim that he did "not recall" a CIA referral memo on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign plan to tie Donald Trump to Russia.

John Durham’s 2023 special counsel public report revealed that “the Intelligence Community received the Clinton Plan intelligence in late July 2016.” This intelligence related to an alleged plan by the Clinton campaign to attempt to link Trump to Russia and Vladimir Putin in an effort to distract from her private email server scandal. The Durham report showed that Comey was briefed on the Clinton Plan intelligence by Brennan in early August 2016 and was also sent a CIA referral memo about the Clinton Plan intelligence in early September 2016.

Nevertheless, Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee in late September 2020 that he did not recall this bombshell referral memo from the CIA. The Trump DOJ’s efforts to indict Comey over that piece of his testimony failed last month.

Durham said Brennan's handwritten notes reflect that Brennan briefed Comey, Obama, then-Vice President Joe Biden, and others by early August 2016 regarding the "alleged approval by Hillary Clinton on 26 July [2016] of a proposal from one of her [campaign] advisors to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security services."

According to Durham’s public report, the purported scheme by Clinton was allegedly approved on July 26, 2016 — smack-dab in the middle of the 2016 Democratic convention nominating Clinton for president. The Durham report also noted that the approval of the Clinton Plan occurred the exact same day that Australian diplomat Alexander Downer — a Clinton supporter — provided the U.S. government a months-old tip about Trump campaign associate George Papadopoulos — with Downer’s tip being cited as the predication to launch Crossfire Hurricane at the end of July 2016.

Durham found that, rather than seriously investigating this alleged Clinton scheme, the Obama administration's intelligence and law enforcement apparatus — led by Comey’s FBI — nonetheless pushed forward on the baseless Trump-Russia collusion saga.

The Durham report also said that the Clinton Plan intelligence “was also of enough importance for the CIA to send a formal written referral memorandum” to Comey and since-fired Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division, Peter Strzok, “for their consideration and action.”

Nevertheless, Comey repeatedly told the Senate in September 2020 that “I do not” recall the CIA referral, and that it “doesn’t ring any bells with me” and “doesn’t sound familiar.”

The Durham report said that the CIA’s referral memo stated that the FBI had “made a verbal request for examples of relevant information the fusion cell had obtained.” FBI Supervisory Analyst Brian Auten told Durham’s investigators that on the Friday before Labor Day — September 2, 2016 — CIA personnel had briefed Auten, FBI intelligence section chief Jonathan Moffa, and possibly “FBI OGC [Office of General Counsel] Unit Chief-1” at FBI Headquarters “on the Clinton intelligence plan” and that “Auten advised that at the time he wanted to see an actual investigative referral memo on the information.” The CIA soon sent that info to Comey and Strzok.

The CIA referral memo to Comey and Strzok — completed on September 7, 2016 — said that the “CIA provides the below examples of information the CROSSFIRE HURRICANE fusion cell has gleaned to date” and showed that the CIA believed Clinton's false narrative would suggest Trump and Russian hackers were hampering U.S. elections, and that Clinton's end goal was "distracting the public from her use of a private email server."

Key FBI officials from whom the Clinton Plan intelligence was hidden later told Durham that they were upset by this concealment and that they should have seen it in 2016. Many FBI personnel involved with Crossfire Hurricane had never seen the Clinton Plan intelligence until Durham’s team showed it to them, and “some expressed surprise and dismay upon learning of it,” the report found.

Declassified records show that intercepts of purported Russian intelligence may have also swayed Comey’s handling of the FBI’s investigation into Clinton using her illicit private email server to send classified information.

Clinton herself was asked about the Clinton Plan intelligence, and told Durham’s team in an interview that it "looked like Russian disinformation to me; they're very good at it, you know."

Clinton campaign tried to tie Trump to Russia in 2016

Durham’s public report said that an unnamed Clinton campaign advisor — "Foreign Policy Advisor-1" (revealed now to be Clinton campaign advisor Julianne Smith) — stated that “she did not specifically remember proposing a ‘plan’ to Clinton or other campaign leadership to ‘stir up a scandal’ by tying Trump to Putin or Russia … however, that it was possible that she had proposed ideas on these topics to the campaign's leadership, who may have approved those ideas.” Smith also “said it was also possible someone proposed an idea of seeking to distract attention from the investigation into Clinton's use of a private email server, but she did not specifically remember any such idea.” Durham wrote that she further insisted that any Clinton campaign plan to tie Trump to Russia "would not have included an effort to enlist the FBI" in the effort. 

Smith did not respond to a previous request for comment this summer from Just the News about this saga, and she did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent to her through her Clarion Strategies firm on Wednesday.

Durham said in his public report that he obtained a purported email from "Foreign Policy Advisor-1" — dated July 27, 2016 — which seemed to align with the Clinton Plan intelligence. The annex revealed this advisor was Smith. The email was sent in an effort to gain signatures for a draft stating critiquing Trump over Russia.

“We are writing to enlist your support for the attached public statement. Both of us are Hillary Clinton supporters and advisors but hope that this statement could be signed by a bipartisan group[.],” the email from Smith said. “Donald Trump's repeated denigration of the NATO Alliance, his refusal to support our Article 5 obligations to our European allies and his kid glove treatment of Russia and Vladimir Putin are among the most reckless statements made by a Presidential candidate in memory.”

Durham concluded that “Foreign Policy Advisor-1's July 27, 2016, email to her colleagues regarding Trump, Russia and NATO — the day after Clinton purportedly approved a plan to tie Trump to Russia — is consistent with the substance of the purported plan.”

The recently declassified evidence, dubbed the "Clinton Plan intelligence", included purported intercepted communications from a George Soros ally suggesting that Clinton’s 2016 campaign against Trump was plotting an effort to demonize the Republican nominee by connecting him to Putin, and that the Clinton campaign expected the FBI would put more fuel on the fire.

Public records show Clinton herself, in coordination with her campaign general counsel Marc Elias, campaign manager Robby Mook, campaign chairman John Podesta, campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri, campaign policy adviser Jake Sullivan, and others launched an effort to link Trump to Putin as the 2016 battle for the White House raged. That effort was largely successful, injecting the fake Trump/Putin connection into legacy media and DNC talking points.

The Clinton campaign and its paid operatives engaged in a lengthy and coordinated effort to tie Trump to Russia during the 2016 election, including: TV appearances, speeches and public pronouncements; an aggressive news and social media strategy; Steele’s decision to bring his now-discredited dossier to the FBI; and the spreading of debunked claims to the FBI and the public related to the Trump Organization and Russia’s Alfa Bank.

Then-Vice President Biden was the first prominent Democrat in summer 2016 to publicly try to link Trump to Putin after U.S. intelligence intercepted a purported plan by Clinton's campaign to vilify Trump by falsely linking him to a Russian plot.

The former spy chief who organized and co-authored the infamous Hunter Biden laptop letter ahead of the 2020 election is the same person who also played a key role in helping Clinton in 2016 smear Trump by tying him to Putin. Mike Morell, the former acting CIA director, inserted into the American political consciousness the idea that Trump was an “agent” of Putin and Russia, a refrain that would be repeated over and over again by the Clinton campaign and a cooperative media in the summer and fall of 2016.

Brennan referred to FBI for criminal investigation

CIA Director John Ratcliffe sent a criminal referral to Patel earlier this year related to possible criminality by Obama's CIA Director John Brennan, sources familiar with Ratcliffe's actions who declined to be named told Just the News earlier this year. It is up to federal investigators and prosecutors to decide whether to act on a referral from the agency.

A review by the CIA released this summer critiqued the actions taken by Brennan.

Ratcliffe said that Brennan, Comey and then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper were “excessively involved” in drafting the assessment, did so in a “chaotic,” “atypical” and “markedly unconventional” process, and rushed to complete it. 

Christopher Steele, a former MI6 agent, had been hired in 2016 by the opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which was being paid by Clinton campaign lawyer Marc Elias. The dossier, now discredited, was used by the FBI to obtain FISA warrants against a Trump campaign official, and evidence continues to emerge about how it was included in the ICA on Russia and the 2016 election.

Ratcliffe said that "multiple senior CIA managers opposed including the [Steele] dossier, asserting it did not meet even basic tradecraft standards. Despite these objections,” Ratcliffe stated. “Brennan showed a preference for narrative consistency over analytical soundness.”

The CIA review sharply criticized Brennan for allegedly joining with anti-Trump forces in the FBI in allegedly pushing to include Steele’s baseless anti-Trump dossier in the assessment. In the review, the CIA also critiqued the “high confidence” assessment by the FBI and the CIA that Russian leader Vladimir Putin had “aspired” to help Trump win in 2016.

Ratcliffe tweeted earlier this year, in announcing the CIA review being made public, that Trump “has trusted me with helping to end weaponization of U.S. intelligence” and that the report “underscores that the 2016 IC Assessment was conducted through an atypical & corrupt process under the politically charged environments” of Brennan and Comey.

The largely declassified eight-page “lessons learned” CIA review focused on the ICA about Russia and the November 2016 election. The review concluded that “the decision by agency heads to include the Steele Dossier in the ICA ran counter to fundamental tradecraft principles and ultimately undermined the credibility of a key judgment.”

The post-election January 2017 ICA was put together by just the CIA, FBI, and NSA — led at the time by Brennan, Comey, and then-NSA director Admiral Mike Rogers — with input from then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.

Comey and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe pushed in December 2016 to include Steele's debunked dossier in the body of the 2016 ICA on alleged Russian meddling. The dossier was included in a classified annex to the assessment with the agreement of Brennan and Comey.

The new CIA review stated that “the ICA authors and multiple senior CIA managers – including the two senior leaders of the CIA mission center responsible for Russia – strongly opposed including the dossier, asserting that it did not meet even the most basic tradecraft standards.” 

The agency review memo also stated that the CIA’s Deputy Director for Analysis warned in a late December 2016 email to Brennan that including the dossier in any form risked “the credibility of the entire paper.”

The review by the CIA also revealed that “despite these objections, Brennan showed a preference for narrative consistency over analytical soundness” and that “when confronted with specific flaws in the Dossier by the two mission center leaders – one with extensive operational experience and the other with a strong analytic background – he appeared more swayed by the Dossier's general conformity with existing theories than by legitimate tradecraft concerns.” 

The CIA review memo stated that Brennan ultimately formalized his position in writing, arguing that “my bottomline is that I believe that the information warrants inclusion in the report.”

The recent CIA memo also stated that “ultimately, agency heads decided to include a two-page summary of the dossier as an annex to the ICA” with an accompanying disclaimer stating that the dossier material was not used “to reach the analytic conclusions.” 

The CIA review memo, however, found that “by placing a reference to the annex material in the main body of the ICA as the fourth supporting bullet for the judgment that Putin ‘aspired’ to help Trump win, the ICA implicitly elevated unsubstantiated claims to the status of credible supporting evidence, compromising the analytical integrity of the judgment.”

“The CIA was very much opposed to having any reference or inclusion of the Steele dossier in the Intelligence Community Assessment,” Brennan told the House in 2023.

The former CIA director said “no” when asked if he edited the ICA, and said “yes” when asked if he was aware of dissenting opinions about the conclusions of the ICA.

“There were individuals who had read the document within CIA who were not involved in the drafting or the analysis [who disagreed with the ICA conclusions],” Brennan said. “And so I listened to some of their concerns, but I deferred to the experts: the Russian, the counterintelligence, the cyber experts, and the analysts who actually drafted this. And so I did not overturn or change any of the judgments and language in that document.”

Brennan has since criticized Ratcliffe’s review and denied any wrongdoing.

The ICA, Obama, intel officials, and a “treasonous conspiracy”

This summer, Director of National Intelligence Gabbard also sent declassified evidence to the DOJ on what she dubbed a “treasonous conspiracy” related to top U.S. intelligence officials allegedly politicizing intelligence related to Russia and the 2016 election.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a press release stating that Gabbard had “revealed overwhelming evidence that demonstrates how, after President Trump won the 2016 election against Hillary Clinton, President Obama and his national security cabinet members manufactured and politicized intelligence to lay the groundwork for what was essentially a years-long coup against President Trump.”

Gabbard said the evidence she had unearthed had been forwarded to the DOJ for review.

“Out of respect for the office of the presidency, our office does not normally dignify the constant nonsense and misinformation flowing out of this White House with a response. But these claims are outrageous enough to merit one,” an Obama statement said in response.

Obama made public statements as early as mid-December 2016 indicating he was endorsing a predetermined CIA view about Putin allegedly wanting Trump to win and Clinton to lose, even though at that point the ICA had not even been completed and was still being debated and drafted.

Prior to Obama’s directive in early December 2016 to create the ICA, Obama had been briefed on “Clinton Plan intelligence”. The then-president was also later part of key discussions in January 2017 related to the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation and the targeting of Trump national security advisor Mike Flynn.

The Senate Intelligence Committee released a bipartisan report in 2020 defending the 2016 ICA. The panel said congressional investigators found no evidence of political pressure and determined the assessment “presents a coherent and well-constructed intelligence basis for the case of unprecedented Russian interference.” The senators also found that “the differing confidence levels on one analytic judgment are justified and properly represented.”

The only direct mention of the ICA in special counsel John Durham’s 2023 report was to praise prior “careful examinations” such as the Senate Intelligence Committee’s 2020 report on Russia.

The Senate findings clashed with a 2018 report from the GOP-led House Intelligence Committee, chaired at the time by then-Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), which concluded that “the majority of the Intelligence Community Assessment judgments on Russia’s election activities employed proper analytic tradecraft” but the “judgments on Putin’s strategic intentions did not.” The House report said it “identified significant intelligence tradecraft failings that undermine confidence in the ICA judgments regarding Putin’s strategic objectives.”

The Democrats on the panel, led by then-ranking member Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., released their own report, saying that they “found no evidence that calls into question the quality and reliability of the ICA’s … assessment about President Putin’s desire to help candidate Trump.”

A recently-declassified GOP House Intelligence Committee analysis provided further detail on how Brennan ensured the Steele Dossier — bought and paid for by the Clinton campaign — would be included in the ICA, despite objections from others at the CIA. The report stated that “the DCIA rejected requests from CIA professionals that the dossier be kept out of the ICA.”

The report cited a senior intelligence officer present at a meeting with Brennan where “two senior CIA officers — one from Russia operations and the other from Russia analysis — argued with DCIA that the dossier should not be included at all in the ICA, because it failed to meet basic tradecraft standards.”

The same officer said that Brennan refused to remove the reference to the dossier and, when Brennan was confronted with the dossier's significant problems, said that Brennan reportedly replied, "Yes, but doesn't it ring true?"

The House analysis stated that, contrary to claims made by the intelligence officials, “the dossier was referenced in the ICA main body text, and further detailed in a two-page CIA annex.”

The flawed ICA stated that “we assess the [Russian] influence campaign aspired to help Trump's chances of victory” in the 2016 election, and the most highly-classified version of the ICA “was followed by four bullets of supporting evidence” — and the declassified House analysis stated that “the fourth bullet referred the reader to a detailed summary and analysis of the dossier.” The ICA stated: “For additional reporting on Russian plans and intentions, please see Annex A: Additional Reporting from an FBI Source on Russian Influence Efforts” — a reference to the Steele Dossier.

The ICA also contained a recently-declassified claim that the Kremlin “historically” preferred Republican candidates over Democratic ones — something belied by the actual historical record. On top of this, the ICA was supposed to also include details on Chinese hacking efforts targeting U.S. presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012 — but it focused solely on Russia instead, and never mentioned China once.

Adam Schiff and classified leaks on Trump and Russia

There has also been significant information revealed recently about the leaks of classified information — including allegations that it was green lit by a prominent Democrat and Trump foe.

A career intelligence officer who worked for Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee for more than a decade repeatedly warned the FBI beginning in 2017 that then-Rep. and now-Sen. Schiff had approved leaking classified information to smear then-President Trump over the now-debunked Russiagate scandal, according to bombshell FBI memos.

The FBI 302 interview reports state the intelligence staffer — a Democrat by party affiliation who described himself as a friend to both Schiff, now a California senator, and former Republican House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes — considered the classified leaking to be "unethical," "illegal," and “treasonous,” but was told not to worry about it because Schiff believed he would be spared prosecution under the Constitution's speech and debate clause.

In his most recent interview with the bureau in 2023, the whistleblower, whose name is redacted, told agents from the FBI's St. Louis office that he personally attended a meeting at which Schiff authorized leaking classified information.

"For years, certain officials used their positions to selectively leak classified information to shape political narratives," Patel told Just the News. "It was all done with one purpose: to weaponize intelligence and law enforcement for political gain.

"Those abuses eroded public trust in our institutions," he added. "The FBI will now lead the charge, with our partners at DOJ, and Congress will have the chance to uncover how political power may have been weaponized and to restore accountability," he said.

Schiff, who previously served as the ranking member and then chairman of the House Intelligence Committee before ascending to the Senate, pushed false allegations of Trump-Russia collusion for many years, and touted British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s discredited dossier — even reading multiple baseless claims from it into the Congressional Record in March 2017.

The whistleblower began approaching the FBI that same year. The whistleblower was interviewed twice in 2017 and at least four times over six years about the alleged Schiff leaks, but Justice Department prosecutors declined to move forward.

In one meeting, the Democratic HPSCI staffer told the FBI that Flynn — Trump’s first national security advisor — was to be a specific focus of the committee as part of a broader effort to target Trump. The whistleblower also specifically pointed to Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., as a likely source of classified leaks, the memos state.

The alleged leaks fall outside the statute of limitations for prosecution on most legal theories, but the revelations nevertheless come at a sensitive time for Schiff, who referred to the DOJ earlier this year for possible prosecution for potential mortgage fraud.

Schiff has denied the allegations.

“Kash Patel’s latest smear against Senator Schiff is absolutely and categorically false, and is just the latest in a series of defamatory attacks from the President and his allies meant to distract from their plummeting poll numbers and the Epstein files scandal," Schiff told Just the News earlier this year. 

"These baseless smears," ha said, "are based on allegations that were found to be not reliable, not credible, and unsubstantiated from a disgruntled former staffer who was fired by the House Intelligence Committee for cause in early 2017, including for harassment and potentially compromising activity on official travel for the Committee."

It remains to be seen whether Obama, Brennan, Schiff, or any other former officials tied to the Trump-Russia collusion hoax will join Comey in being charged by the Trump Justice Department — but Bondi’s strong language suggests that the fired FBI director will not be the only person indicted when all is said and done.