A newly declassified appendix to the Durham report allegedly reveals that Hillary Clinton approved a plan to promote the Trump-Russia collusion narrative during the 2016 election and later denied any involvement to the FBI. Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley released the annex on Thursday as part of Special Counsel John Durham’s 2023 report. The document bolsters claims by Donald Trump and his allies that the FBI acted improperly when initiating its investigation into Trump’s campaign.

The annex includes Russian intelligence memos and internal Clinton campaign communications that suggest coordination to associate Trump with Russian election interference. One alleged email from July 2016 shows Leonard Benardo of the Open Society Foundations discussing the political impact of the DNC server hack. He reportedly referred to a strategy by Clinton foreign policy adviser Julianne Smith to “demonize Putin and Trump.” Two days later, Benardo allegedly claimed that Clinton approved the idea to link Trump to Russian hackers as a way to deflect attention from her missing emails.

Some U.S. intelligence analysts assessed the emails as likely authentic, while others raised concerns about possible fabrication. Benardo denied drafting the emails but admitted that certain language used sounded like something he might have said, further complicating their credibility.

Despite these claims, Clinton and key members of her campaign denied knowledge of any plan to connect Trump to Russia. Clinton dismissed the intelligence as “Russian disinformation,” while John Podesta and Jake Sullivan labeled the information “ridiculous” and denied involvement in such a strategy.

Nevertheless, the annex concludes that evidence from Smith’s communications supports the notion that the Clinton campaign sought to encourage FBI scrutiny of Trump’s ties to Russia and may have hoped for official investigations to further that narrative.