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<\/p>\n Email Link<\/p>\n \n Attorney General Pam Bondi this past week directed federal prosecutors<\/a> to launch a grand jury investigation into accusations that the Obama administration manufactured intelligence about Russia\u2019s interference in the 2016 presidential election.\n <\/p>\n \n Her order bears striking similarities to President Donald Trump\u2019s first term, when then-Attorney General Bill Barr alleged<\/a> that \u201cgovernment power was used to spy on American citizens.\u201d Barr tapped John Durham to lead what became a four-year probe that faulted the FBI for numerous actions launching and carrying out its investigation of Trump and Russia.\n <\/p>\n \n But Durham\u2019s lengthy investigation<\/a> did not lead to any criminal charges \u2014 or allegations of significant wrongdoing \u2014 related to the CIA and intelligence community\u2019s role in concluding that Russia interfered in the 2016 election and wanted to help Trump win.\n <\/p>\n \n In essence, Bondi is now asking her prosecutors to investigate a period in American history that has been scrutinized and re-scrutinized for more than eight years now. It\u2019s the latest in a series of prosecutorial moves in which Trump\u2019s Justice Department has been wielded to go after his perceived political opponents and enemies.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cJohn Durham was dead set on bringing criminal charges if he could. And he didn\u2019t get anywhere near the type of charges or the type of players they\u2019re talking about here,\u201d said Elie Honig, a senior CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThis is now the fifth bite at that same apple,\u201d Honig said. \u201cIf they want to go down this road again, I don\u2019t see any reason to think they\u2019re going to do any better unless they just completely manipulate the facts here.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Bondi\u2019s new probe was sparked by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who has declassified and released several sets of documents in recent weeks she claims were evidence of a \u201cseditious conspiracy,\u201d alleging that Obama officials should be prosecuted for manufacturing intelligence that Russia interfered in the election.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI don\u2019t know what excuse there is for those who supposedly investigated this previously, whether it was Durham or others, that they were not able to put together the dots and ultimately show the truth to the American people,\u201d Gabbard told Fox Business\u2019 Maria Bartiromo last month when asked why other investigations like Durham\u2019s did not find evidence of the allegations she was making.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI really cannot fathom \u2014 there is no rationale or logical explanation for why they failed,\u201d she continued. \u201cThe only logical conclusion that I can draw in this, Maria, is what you\u2019re implying here directly, is that there was direct intent to cover up the truth about what occurred and who was responsible, and the broad network of how this seditious conspiracy was concocted and who exactly was responsible for carrying it out.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n While Durham\u2019s investigation focused primarily on FBI missteps that had been documented by the Justice Department inspector general, Gabbard\u2019s allegations are now directed at the CIA and intelligence community.\n <\/p>\n \n Durham found that the intelligence community\u2019s assessment of Russia\u2019s election meddling \u2014 which detailed a social media influence campaign and cyber operations directed by President Vladimir Putin \u2014 was one of multiple investigations into Moscow\u2019s actions in 2016 that had contributed \u201cto our understanding of Russian election interference efforts.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThere was a real Russian threat,\u201d Durham testified in 2023 when asked about the January 2017 assessment from the CIA and intelligence community detailing Russia\u2019s election interference that\u2019s the focus of Gabbard\u2019s renewed scrutiny.\n <\/p>\n \n But at the White House podium last month, Gabbard alleged that Obama administration officials knowingly pushed a false narrative about Russia\u2019s election interference, claiming \u201cthe evidence that we have found and that we have released directly point to President Obama leading the manufacturing of this intelligence assessment.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n In her allegations, Gabbard has conflated and misrepresented<\/a> what the intelligence community actually concluded in its assessment.\n <\/p>\n \n For example, Gabbard cited various intelligence assessments from 2016 that stated the Russians did not alter the election results through cyberattacks aimed at infiltrating voting systems. But the intelligence community never found any votes were altered in the first place.\n <\/p>\n \n She also declassified and released<\/a> a Republican House Intelligence Committee report that alleged the intelligence community\u2019s assessment that Putin preferred Trump over Hillary Clinton was thinly sourced and ignored contradictory evidence. But unlike Gabbard, the House report did not argue that the intelligence was \u201cmanufactured\u201d or that Russian election interference did not occur.\n <\/p>\n \n Democrats have accused Gabbard and Trump of using the Russia investigation documents to try to distract from the furor surrounding the Jeffrey Epstein files. Gabbard\u2019s allegations, they argue, are rebutted by the investigations carried out by Durham, special counsel Robert Mueller, the Justice Department inspector general and the Senate Intelligence Committee, which all concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cAfter years of investigation, John Durham confirmed what we already knew: There was no grand conspiracy to frame Donald Trump,\u201d said Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. \u201cWhat we do know, from the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report and multiple independent investigations, is that Russia interfered in our elections in order to help Trump win.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Durham\u2019s report was highly critical<\/a> of the FBI\u2019s decision to investigate Trump and Russia, concluding that the agency did not find \u201cany actual evidence of collusion\u201d between the two and failed to take basic investigative steps before launching a yearslong probe. He indicted three people throughout his four-year investigation, leading to one guilty plea<\/a> of a low-level FBI lawyer and two<\/a> acquittals<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n His report focused on the FBI\u2019s actions much more than the CIA and the intelligence community. But there are numerous reports from 2019<\/a> and 2020<\/a> showing both Durham and Barr sought to question CIA officials about their findings on Russian election interference in 2016.\n <\/p>\n \n With the new grand jury investigation, it\u2019s still not yet clear what allegations specifically Bondi wants prosecutors to probe or even who will be leading the investigation. The attorney general has not spoken publicly about the grand jury investigation. Last month, she announced a strike force to \u201cinvestigate potential next legal steps which might stem from DNI Gabbard\u2019s disclosures.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Gabbard isn\u2019t the only Trump official who has released documents and made criminal referrals related to Russia and the 2016 election.\n <\/p>\n \n CIA Director John Ratcliffe also released a review<\/a> of the intelligence community\u2019s 2017 assessment last month that criticized the conclusion that Putin sought to help Trump.\n <\/p>\n \n Ratcliffe\u2019s review said the conclusion on Putin was reached \u201cthrough an atypical & corrupt process,\u201d though it found \u201cthe overall assessment was deemed defensible.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Ratcliffe referred former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey to the Justice Department, which the department is also now investigating, CNN reported<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n Emails about \u2018Clinton-plan\u2019 on Trump and Russia appear to be faked<\/p>\n
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