For years, the American public was consumed by a single, polarizing narrative: that Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign had colluded with the Russian government to win the election. This story dominated the news cycle, fueled congressional investigations, and deepened the nation’s political divides. For many, it was a straightforward account of unprecedented foreign interference and a compromised American president, a story seemingly confirmed by the nation’s most trusted intelligence and law enforcement agencies.
However, a wave of declassified intelligence documents, inspector general reports, and sworn whistleblower testimony has since painted a far different and more complex picture. This official record, long obscured from public view, reveals a story not of a discovered crime, but of a deliberately constructed political narrative—one that was initiated, funded, and amplified by the political opponents of its target. This post will distill the most surprising declassified truths, revealing how a national crisis was manufactured.
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1. The ‘Clinton Plan’: U.S. Intelligence Knew of a Plot to Frame Trump
In late July 2016, U.S. intelligence agencies obtained insight into a Russian intelligence analysis which alleged a plan approved by Hillary Clinton’s campaign. The plan’s goal was to “vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service.” This was intended to serve as a strategic distraction from Clinton’s ongoing controversy over her use of a private email server while Secretary of State.
This intelligence was deemed significant enough that then-CIA Director John Brennan personally briefed President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, the Attorney General, and the FBI Director. According to the Durham Report, the intelligence was so concerning that on September 7, 2016, the CIA sent a formal investigative referral to FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok detailing the alleged plot.
The contrast in the FBI’s response is stark. While the Bureau launched “Crossfire Hurricane,” a full-scale counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign based on unvetted, third-hand information relayed by an Australian diplomat, it took no discernible action in response to this direct intelligence about the Clinton campaign’s alleged plan. No inquiry was opened, no taskings were issued, and no analytical products were produced. With the FBI declining to investigate the plan’s architects, the operation’s primary instrument—a dossier of opposition research—was allowed to enter the intelligence ecosystem unchecked.
2. The Steele Dossier: Built on ‘Rumor,’ ‘Speculation,’ and a Clinton Loyalist’s Fabrication
The Steele Dossier was a central pillar of the collusion narrative, providing the most salacious allegations. It was not only fed to the media but also used by the FBI as a key piece of evidence to obtain Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants to surveil Trump campaign associate Carter Page. However, declassified records show the FBI knew its foundation was rotten.
The dossier’s “Primary Sub-Source” was not a high-level Kremlin insider but a Washington D.C.-based researcher named Igor Danchenko. When the FBI interviewed Danchenko in 2017, he admitted he was unable to corroborate any of the dossier’s key allegations. He told investigators his own sourcing consisted of little more than casual conversations and unsubstantiated hearsay.
Danchenko described his interactions with his sub-sources as “rumor and speculation” and conversations of a casual nature.
One of Danchenko’s key sources was Charles Dolan, a long-time public relations professional with deep ties to the Clintons, who had also been employed by a firm representing the Russian Federation, putting him in contact with top Kremlin officials who would later be named in the dossier itself. The Durham Report reveals that Dolan acknowledged to investigators that he fabricated a key claim about Paul Manafort’s resignation from the Trump campaign—a fabrication that later appeared in one of Christopher Steele’s reports. Despite knowing the dossier was largely unverified, its sourcing was unreliable, and it contained politically motivated fabrications, the FBI continued to use it in FISA renewal applications, without informing the court of these critical deficiencies. Despite the FBI’s internal knowledge of its flaws, the dossier’s fabricated allegations would soon be given the veneer of official credibility in the U.S. government’s highest-level intelligence assessment.
3. The Official Assessment: How Intelligence Was ‘Politically’ Shaped and Dissent Was Ignored
The January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA), titled “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections,” was the official U.S. government report that concluded Vladimir Putin had a “clear preference” for Donald Trump. Declassified reports and testimony reveal its creation was a rushed and politically managed process.
Then-CIA Director John Brennan personally directed the review, ordering the publication of raw human intelligence that his own officers had previously judged to have not met various long-standing intelligence community standards for publication. According to a declassified House Intelligence Committee report, the ICA’s drafters suppressed or ignored significant contrary intelligence. This included an assessment that Putin may have preferred to see Hillary Clinton elected, viewing her as a “more vulnerable President” with whom Russia could more easily maneuver.
Declassified testimony from a senior CIA officer reveals a direct confrontation with superiors in which he stated, “The intelligence doesn’t support your judgment at all, saying that Trump had Putin aspiring that he would win.” These objections were sidelined in the rushed effort to publish the report before Trump’s inauguration. By referencing the Steele Dossier in its main body, the ICA effectively laundered discredited opposition research, giving it the imprimatur of the U.S. Intelligence Community and contradicting Brennan’s public denials. This flawed assessment cemented a one-sided view of foreign influence, completely obscuring a parallel, pro-Clinton interference operation being run by officials from another country: Ukraine.
4. Ukraine’s 2016 Interference: The Anti-Trump, Pro-Clinton Foreign Influence Operation
While the public focus was fixed on Russia, declassified records and sworn testimony confirmed that high-level Ukrainian government officials were also interfering in the 2016 election—in favor of Hillary Clinton. Their methods were overt and coordinated.
Ukrainian officials publicly questioned Trump’s fitness for office, with the Minister of Internal Affairs, Arsen Avakov, calling him a “clown” and “dangerous for Ukraine” on social media. More significantly, a Democratic National Committee (DNC) consultant named Alexandra Chalupa worked directly with the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington to research alleged ties between Trump, his campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and Russia. Her stated goal was to frame them as “Russian assets.”
This effort culminated in the “black ledger” story, which was publicized by Ukrainian lawmaker Serhiy Leshchenko and the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) to implicate Manafort in off-the-books payments from a pro-Russian political party. The Clinton campaign immediately seized on the story, leading to Manafort’s resignation. In a stunning epilogue, a Ukrainian court later ruled that the lawmaker and NABU had illegally interfered in the 2016 U.S. election by publicizing the ledger for the explicit purpose of helping Hillary Clinton’s campaign. While a foreign power successfully influenced the 2016 election on behalf of the Clinton campaign, the narrative against Trump was being amplified domestically through a coordinated campaign of illicit leaks.
5. Weaponized Leaks: A “Treasonous” Plot to Smear a President
Strategic and illegal leaks of classified information were the primary vehicle for disseminating the Trump-Russia narrative to the public. Recently declassified FBI memos reveal bombshell allegations from a career intelligence officer who worked for Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee (HPSCI). This whistleblower repeatedly warned the FBI that the committee’s top Democrat, then-Rep. Adam Schiff, had approved the leaking of classified information to smear President Trump.
The whistleblower—a Democrat who described himself to the FBI as a friend to both Schiff and his Republican counterpart Devin Nunes—found the plot to leak classified intelligence not just illegal but morally reprehensible. According to FBI interview notes, he “believed this activity would be unethical and treasonous.”
According to the whistleblower’s interviews with the FBI, Schiff and other staffers were reassured they wouldn’t be caught or prosecuted. Schiff allegedly believed he was protected by the Constitution’s “speech and debate clause,” a legal protection intended for official legislative duties. The whistleblower claimed the leaks were “driven from the top,” “structured and intentional,” and part of a concerted effort “to topple the administration.”
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Conclusion: A Manufactured Crisis and a Question of Trust
The declassified record is unambiguous. The Russia collusion narrative did not spring from verified intelligence spontaneously uncovered by law enforcement. It was seeded by a political campaign’s strategic plan, built upon a fabricated and discredited dossier, legitimized by a politically shaped intelligence assessment that suppressed dissent, and amplified by the covert efforts of foreign allies and the weaponized leaking of classified information. It was, in short, a manufactured crisis.
The declassified record shows this was not a failure of process, but its successful execution for political ends. The question is no longer whether these institutions can be weaponized, but whether the public’s trust in them can ever be restored.