After alleged Clinton Russia ruse was intercepted by US intel, Biden took first shot smearing Trump

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

The timing of Biden's Russia attacks against Trump in July 2016 was striking to U.S. intelligence because it and other events matched predictions in the intercepted evidence from Russian spy agencies, which had claimed to have gained access to the Clinton campaign strategy, officials told Just the News.

Biden would become the public face of an effort to attack Trump by linking him to Putin starting in late July 2016 — just as the Democratic National Convention formally nominating Clinton was getting underway, and very soon after the reported approval by Clinton to carry out this plan.

"Clinton Plan intelligence" at work

Newly-declassified Clinton Plan intelligence included purported intercepted communications from a George Soros ally suggesting that Clinton’s 2016 campaign against Trump was plotting a “long-term affair to demonize” the Republican nominee by connecting him to Putin, and that the Clinton campaign expected that “the FBI will put more oil into the fire.”

A source familiar with the intelligence, but who declined to be named told Just the News that the U.S. government has the capability to determine whether some of the intercepts were real rather than being Russian disinformation, but that this determination involves highly classified tools.

The bombshell allegations about a plot to falsely link Trump to Putin in an effort to distract from Clinton’s classified emails scandal are found within a formerly classified but now largely-unredacted appendix from Special Counsel John Durham’s 2023 report.

The source told Just the News — and Just the News' review of Durham‘s classified annex also confirmed — that some in the CIA believed that the intelligence the Russians had obtained about the Clinton Plan was accurate but perhaps a composite of multiple pieces of evidence the Russian had intercepted.

Part of the reason for that assessment, the source said, was that some of the events the Russians were predicting based on their intercepts were actually occurring, including Biden seemingly taking the lead shortly after the plan’s approval, just as some messages had predicted.

Durham’s 2023 public report revealed that “the Intelligence Community received the Clinton Plan intelligence in late July 2016.”

And the newly declassified annex of the report also shows he found some corroborating evidence for the intercepts but concluded the purported emails from an official at George Soros foundation named Leonard Bernardo were likely mashups or composites of what Russian spies had probably collected.

"The office’s best assessment is that the July 25 and July 27 emails that purport to be from Benardo were ultimately a composite of several emails that were obtained through Russian intelligence hacking of the U.S.-based think tanks, including the Open Society Foundations, the Carnegie Endowment and others,” the report concluded.

Biden was briefed on "vilifying" Trump in 2016

The Special Counsel said then-CIA Director John Brennan's handwritten notes reflect that Brennan briefed Biden, then-President Barack Obama, since-fired FBI Director James Comey, and others in early August 2016 regarding the "alleged approval by Hillary Clinton on 26 July 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."

Durham's classified annex noted text messages between Clinton campaign officials referred to efforts to get Biden's vice presidential office involved in July 2016 in drumming up concerns about Russian hacking and Trump.

Biden jumped into action and raised concerns about Trump and Russia, according to public transcripts of his interviews and speeches.

Biden spoke with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News at the DNC, where he argued that Putin preferred Trump to Hillary. The interview occurred on July 26, 2016 — the same day as the reported approval of the Clinton Plan.

“I've traveled over a million miles around the world just in the last seven and a half years. But I haven't found a single world leader, ally, friend, who says, ‘Geez, it's great. Maybe we'll get a Trump presidency.’ Oh, I think Putin doesn't want a united NATO,” Biden said. “I think he [Putin] doesn't want a united EU. I could see where a lot of our adversaries would think it's better to have someone who doesn't have any idea what they're doing than have somebody as tough as Hillary.”

Biden joined Morning Joe of MSNBC in a Philadelphia bar near the DNC the next day, where Biden again argued that Trump was playing into Putin’s hands.

“This whole thing about NATO, now, you know, everybody's making a big thing and saying, ‘He [Trump] is a friend of Putin's.’ I don't buy that, but here's what he's doing: He's playing directly into the hands of a guy who says — your father [Jimmy Carter national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski] would tell you — his overarching goal of Putin is to break up NATO and to fracture Europe,” Biden said.

Biden added: “So here you've got someone come along and say, ‘You know, unless Latvia pays their bills’ — first of all, they're paying their bill, but — ‘unless Latvia pays their bills, I'm not sure we're gonna honor Article Five of a treaty that is a single most significant treaty in the history of mankind, lasted over 60 years, is absolutely central to our security.’ … I don't think he knows what Article Five is.”

Notably, the Obama vice president would travel to Latvia the next month to again hammer Trump about his alleged stance on NATO.

Biden uses his prime-time DNC speech to smear Trump

During his prime-time speech at the DNC the night of July 27, 2016, Biden directly tied Trump to Putin in an effort to claim the Republican nominee posed a danger to the country, saying "We cannot elect a man, who belittles our closest allies, while embracing dictators like Vladimir Putin.” 

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest was asked the next day if Biden’s description of Putin as a dictator was the official position of the Obama administration, and Earnest replied that “there is no official government designation about dictatorships,” but pointed to a State Department human rights report describing the political situation inside of Russia, which said that "the Russian Federation has a highly centralized authoritarian political system dominated by President Vladimir Putin."

When a reporter asked directly if Obama considered Putin a dictator, Earnest did not answer directly, arguing that “I think you'd be hard-pressed to draw a distinction between the word that Vice President Biden used and the language that was included in the State Department report.”

Obama pitched in, claiming that night that Trump “cozies up to Putin” and “tells our NATO allies that stood by our side after 9/11 that they have to pay up if they want our protection” during his DNC speech on July 28, 2016.

Clinton, for her part, did not directly present the Trump-Putin link during her own speech, although she did echo the theme by declaring that “I’m proud to stand by our allies in NATO against any threat they face, including from Russia” when she took center stage on July 29, 2016.

Clinton herself was previously asked about the Clinton Plan intelligence, and told Durham’s team in an interview that it was "really sad" but "I get it, you have to go down every rabbit hole." She said that it "looked like Russian disinformation to me; they're very good at it, you know."

The declassified revelations from the Durham report included purported emails from Benardo, a top official at George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, and alleged communications by Clinton foreign policy adviser Julianne Smith. The emails were intercepted by Russian hackers, and provide new insight into information that the U.S. intelligence community received in July 2016 – just before the FBI launched its politicized Crossfire Hurricane investigation.

The declassified appendix from Durham said that some FBI analysts believed the intercepted communications to be real while some did not, and the appendix added that it was only in 2017 that the “CIA prepared a written assessment of the authenticity and veracity of the above-referenced intelligence." The CIA also stated that "it did not assess that the above [REDACTED] memoranda, or [REDACTED] hacked U.S. communications, to be the product of Russian fabrications.”

Benardo is the senior vice president of Soros’s Open Society Foundations, founded by leftwing billionaire George Soros and now currently chaired by his son, Alex Soros.

He told Durham he did not write the emails and would not use such language included in them. The Open Society Foundation issued a new statement Thursday echoing that sentiment.

“The claim that the Open Society Foundations helped orchestrate an FBI investigation is an outrageous falsehood,” a spokesperson for the Soros-funded organization told Just the News.

"It is grounded in malicious disinformation traced to Russian intelligence and now weaponized as part of a politically motivated campaign to attack our leadership and our work to promote human rights," it added.

Biden-linked Clinton campaign officials carry out plan

Smith was the head of the Clinton campaign’s Europe team and worked as a foreign policy advisor for the failed 2016 bid. Smith had been acting national security advisor and deputy national security advisor to then-Vice President Joe Biden during the Obama administration. She served as the U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO during the Biden administration, and also served as a senior adviser to then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken. She is also a close ally of Biden Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and is currently serving as the president of the newly-formed Clarion Strategies, which she recently co-founded with Austin.

The Durham classified annex assessed that “it is a logical deduction [REDACTED] [Julianne] Smith was, at minimum, playing a role in the Clinton campaign’s efforts to tie Trump to Russia” and that the communications reviewed by the special counsel “certainly lends at least some credence that such a plan existed.”

Durham’s public report said that an unnamed Clinton campaign advisor — "Foreign Policy Advisor-1" (revealed now to be 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 “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 said in his public report that he obtained an 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 special counsel also dug up a text exchange between the aforementioned "Foreign Policy Advisor-1" (Smith) and "Foreign Policy Advisor-2" dated July 25, 2016 — the day prior to the alleged approval of the Clinton Plan.

The second foreign policy advisor reportedly asked the first one if an unnamed Obama NSC member “will tell you if there is a formal FBI or other investigation into the hack” of the DNC. The first foreign policy advisor replied that “[she] won't say anything more to me. Sorry. Told me [she] went as far as [she] could.” The first foreign policy advisor suggested that they “can also try OVP [Office of the Vice President]” because Biden’s vice presidential office “might say more.” The second foreign policy advisor said it “would also be good to try [Biden’s office], and anyone in IC [intelligence community].”

The exchange between the two foreign policy advisors then included a recognition that the FBI soon put out a statement that day saying it was investigating the alleged DNC hack.

Durham’s report further concluded that “Foreign Policy Advisor-1's text message exchange with Foreign Policy Advisor-2 supports the notion that at least some officials within the campaign were seeking information about the FBI's response to the DNC hack, which would be consistent with, and a means of furthering, the purported plan."

Smith did not respond to a request for comment from Just the News sent to her through Clarion.

Notably, Jake Sullivan, who was then a foreign policy adviser for the Clinton campaign, and would go on to be future President Biden’s national security adviser as well, told Durham’s team that he had not seen the intelligence reporting before and had no reaction to it other than to say, “That’s ridiculous.” 

Durham said that “Sullivan could not recall anyone articulating a strategy or ‘plan’ to distract negative attention away from Clinton by tying Trump to Russia, but could not conclusively rule out the possibility.”

Biden on campaign trail: "Trump would have loved Stalin"

Biden made his first official joint campaign appearance with Clinton in mid-August 2016, telling the crowd that Trump “would have loved Stalin” during the rally in Scranton, Pennsylvania. 

The Guardian reported that Biden said that Trump "has even gone so far as to ask Putin and Russia to conduct cyberattacks against the United States of America.” Biden added: “Even if he is joking – which he’s not – what an outrageous thing to say.”

Biden traveled to Latvia in late August 2016 to tell the Baltic states not to take Trump seriously and to argue that the U.S. remained committed to NATO, according to Reuters. 

"I want to make it absolutely clear to all the people in the Baltic states: we have pledged our sacred honor, the United States of America ... to the NATO treaty and Article Five," Biden said.

Biden also took aim at Trump: "The fact that you occasionally hear something from a presidential candidate in the other party, it's ... nothing that should be taken seriously.”

Biden was asked in a mid-October 2016 appearance on Meet the Press about what the Obama administration was going to do in response to Russia’s alleged hacking efforts and what message the U.S. was going to send to Putin.

“We're sending a message. We have the capacity to do it. And — the message… He [Putin] will know it. And it will be at the time of our choosing. And under the circumstances that have the greatest impact. Look—” Biden said.

When asked if he was concerned if Americans were going to question the result of the election, Biden replied.

It was later reported by Politico and NBC in late October 2016 that Biden was under consideration to be Clinton’s secretary of state.

Clinton publicly joins in falsely linking Trump to Putin

Clinton tweeted on Halloween 2016 that “computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank.” She included a lengthy statement from Sullivan on her behalf titled “New Report Exposing Trump’s Secret Line of Communication to Russia.”

Sullivan issued a press release saying "This secret hotline may be the key to unlocking the mystery of Trump’s ties to Russia … This line of communication may help explain Trump’s bizarre adoration of Vladimir Putin.”

Sullivan added: “We can only assume that federal authorities will now explore this direct connection between Trump and Russia as part of their existing probe into Russia’s meddling in our elections.”

The Clinton campaign and research succeeded in leading the legacy media -- and much of the public -- to accept the fake Trump-Putin connection as a fact. 

Now that the evidence shows that Russiagate was an elaborate political dirty trick, it remains to be seen how long it will take for the newly-revealed falsity of the smear to correct the long-repeated but wholly untrue Trump-Putin narrative that still lingers in much of the collective American political psyche.