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(CNN) Special Counsel John Durham’s report, released Monday, details an investigation into an alleged effort by the Hillary Clinton campaign to tie Donald Trump to Russia in 2016. , Mr. Durham concludes, “On all counts, there was no provable criminal offence.”
In a footnote, Durham said he met with the former secretary of state in May 2022 as part of the investigation.
The special counsel is investigating whether any crime was committed in the handling of unverified U.S. intelligence that shows Russia knew of a plan to smear opponent Trump in the Clinton campaign by tying it to the state. Was.
The 2016 information caught the attention of then-CIA Director John Brennan, who briefed President Obama and referred the matter to the FBI. During the Trump administration, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe released a portion of Mr. Brennan’s memo regarding information used in a meeting with former President Barack Obama.
Ratcliffe has publicly stated that intelligence agencies have never backed up Russia’s claims of a “Clinton plan” to frame President Trump and does not know if it was fabricated.
In an interview with Durham investigators, Mrs Clinton expressed sympathy for the Durham investigation. She called it “really sad,” adding, “Okay, I know you have to go down all the rabbit holes.”
But Durham believes the FBI should have questioned whether the unsubstantiated information was at least used by political opponents to pursue allegations against the Trump campaign, the report said.
Mrs Clinton said the intelligence agency wasting Mrs Durham’s time was a hoax and “looked like Russian disinformation to me.”
A Clinton spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.
Durham concludes that it is impossible to prosecute someone for their handling of information. He said it “represented a serious intelligence failure” but was not a crime.
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