Holman W. Jenkins Jr. WSJ, May 16, 2023
If there wasn’t a “Clinton plan”—the phrase used 65 times in Monday’s published report by Justice Department special counsel John Durham—to tar then-rival Donald Trump as a Russian agent, there may have been a plan about what to say if anybody asked if there was a Clinton plan. “Ridiculous” was the word used by campaign chairman John Podesta when interviewed by the special counsel. “Ridiculous,” said foreign-policy adviser Jake Sullivan. Mrs. Clinton at least mixed it up, calling the notion of a deliberate smear campaign “very sad” and a “rabbit hole.”
For a plan that didn’t exist, it was remarkably effective. The Steele dossier was a tissue of lies made up by a Clinton-paid investigator who “simply fabricated” sources and information. The Alfa Bank allegation, the Yotaphone allegation—don’t ask—were inventions promoted by a Democratic lawyer who claimed his clients were an amalgam of “Gilligan’s Island” actors residing at EPA headquarters.
As with previous work by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, pivotal information is sadly reserved for a classified appendix, in this case Russian intelligence intercepted by the Obama administration indicating the Kremlin knew of the “Clinton plan.” Who knows if this “Russian intelligence” was any more solidly based than the Clinton “intelligence” that sent the FBI off in search of Trump collusion. The Russians could have intuited a “Clinton plan’s” existence simply by reading the press. In any case, much to the later aggravation of key FBI investigators, the Durham report reveals that they were never told of the Russian intelligence pointing to a Clinton role in creating the collusion evidence they were asked to assess. … [To read the full article, click here.]
