The billionaire’s foundation was allegedly involved in the 2016 smear campaign and in instigating the FBI probe into the collusion claim
A newly unclassified document suggests George Soros’ Open Society Foundation was involved in the effort by the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016 to falsely accuse then-candidate Donald Trump of ties to Russia.
The document, a 29-page annex to John Durham’s 2023 Special Counsel report, was released by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday shortly after it was declassified. It sheds more light on what Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) described as “one of the biggest political scandals and cover-ups in American history.”
“Based on the Durham annex, the Obama FBI failed to adequately review and investigate intelligence reports showing the Clinton campaign may have been ginning up the fake Trump-Russia narrative for Clinton’s political gain… These intelligence reports and related records, whether true or false, were buried for years,” Grassley said in a statement.
The annex cites several emails allegedly sent by Leonard Benardo, senior vice president of Soros’ Open Society Foundations, throughout July 2016, which provide details on the Clinton campaign’s plans to falsely accuse Trump of Russia links and tie him to the alleged Democratic National Committee (DNC) hack. Analysis by the Durham team concluded the Benardo emails “were likely authentic,” the annex states.
“During the first stage of the campaign, due to lack of direct evidence, it was decided to disseminate the necessary information through the FBI-affiliated ‘attic-based’ technical structures… in particular, the Crowdstrike and ThreatConnect companies, from where the information would then be disseminated through leading US publications,” one of the emails reads.
Another email purportedly sent by Benardo states that the “media analysis on the DNC hacking appears solid” and suggests that “later the FBI will put more oil into fire,” apparently predicting the probe by the agency. It also cites an individual named “Julie,” identified in the annex as Clinton’s foreign policy adviser Julianne Smith, who said the future Russiagate “will be a long term affair to demonize [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and Trump.”
