Released: The Durham Classified Appendix

The Classified Appendix to Special Counsel John Durham’s report has been released. You can view it here.

To briefly summarize, the Classified Appendix provided further information about the matters covered in parts of Durham’s report – specifically, those relating to Hillary Clinton’s plan to link Trump and Russia; the threat of foreign influence by a foreign government; and the Carter Page FISA application renewals.

But the most material information covers the Clinton Plan, and provides further details on how that plan started, efforts by Clinton and her team to influence officials within the Obama Administration, and how the Clinton Campaign would use Crowdstrike to further their theory that the Russians hacked and leaked information from the Democratic National Convention (DNC) and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC).

The Clinton Plan Origins

Some context is needed to understand how the Obama Administration discovered the Clinton Plan back in July of 2016. And the Classified Appendix supplies just that.

From 2014 to 2016, persons affiliated with Russian intelligence hacked and gained access to the emails of numerous US public and private entities, including government agencies, non-profits, and think tanks. This included the Open Society Foundations, formerly known as the Soros Foundation.

Sources provided the U.S. with intelligence concerning these hacks and access, including emails and Russian reports analyzing the hacked communications. Some of the emails originated from Leonard Benardo (remember that name), who was the Regional Director for Eurasia at the Open Society Foundations (Soros).

One of the Russian reports obtained by the FBI concerned a discussion of confidential discussions with Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz concerning the Hillary Clinton e-mail scandal, and included the following intelligence: