Hillary Had Russia Ties, Not Trump in 2016

Fox Business Network anchor Maria Bartiromo reported on the long-awaited report from Trump-era Special Counsel John Durham on Tuesday and brought on Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) to offer her reaction. Blackburn offered a surprising take on the report and turned the so-called Trump-Russia scandal on its head by claiming it was Hillary Clinton who was in bed with Russia, not Donald Trump.

“The Durham report has finally been released late yesterday and it confirmed everything that we’ve reported on this program to a tee from back in 2018 that the Trump-Russia collusion story was made up by Trump’s opponents, including the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democrats. The FBI pursued their investigation despite having no evidence,” Bartiromo began.

Notably, the GOP-led Senate Intelligence Committee in August of 2020 released its final report on its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, which revealed “numerous contacts between the Trump campaign and Moscow posed a ‘grave’ counterintelligence threat.” The Senate report did not accuse the Trump campaign of directly conspiring with Russia, but noted that Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s presence “created opportunities for Russian intelligence services to exert influence over, and acquire confidential information on, the Trump Campaign.”

The Fox host then played a series of clips from her interviewing figures like former congressman now CEO of Trump’s Truth Social Devin Nunes and Trump’s former acting Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe.

After showing the bombastic clips accusing Hillary Clinton of wrongdoing, Bartiromo added, “And Durham also found what we reported on at the time that Hillary Clinton’s plan to link Trump to Russia was briefed to then-President Obama and Vice President Biden before the 2016 election.”

“We reported extensively on the notes that John Brennan was holding, explaining to Obama that the Russians found out that Hillary had come up with a plan to tie Trump to a scandal,” she added before introducing Blackburn and asking for the senator’s reaction.

“I am not surprised with what we found out from the Durham report because we’ve said all along Hillary and Bill Clinton had close ties to the Russians. They were big funders of the Clinton Foundation,” Blackburn replied, adding:

Hillary even said to Vladimir Putin, ‘Let’s punch the reset button and reset this relationship.’ That is one of the first things she did as our secretary of state. And there was never evidence around this Russia collusion with Donald Trump. And now we find out Hillary was the one who was cooking this plan up and then saying it was the Russians and blaming it on Donald Trump when all along it was Hillary Clinton who was close to the Russians.

Bartiromo replied by taking a dig at the media, “Yeah, but what about the media? I mean, the media also allowed this story to go viral, even though they had absolutely no evidence.”

“And let’s not forget, not just the Clinton Global Initiative and all that money that goes into there and has over the years. It was Bill Clinton getting all that money for speeches in Russia. It wasn’t just what Donald Trump wasn’t doing. It was Hillary what Hillary Clinton was doing. And the FBI pursuing it despite no evidence. Lives have been destroyed in the process,” Bartiromo continued.

Axios noted of the Durham report on Tuesday, “Durham concluded that the decision to open the investigation was rushed and a departure from how the FBI treated other intelligence matters that could affect the presidential election.” Axios also notes that Durham failed to secure any prosecutions throughout his investigation, unlike “Former special counsel Robert Mueller [who] ultimately did not establish a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, but his report detailed extensive election interference by the Kremlin and repeated contacts with Trump-linked officials.”

Politico, meanwhile, added, “The [Durham] report often sounds more like an inspector general inquiry in search of waste, fraud and abuse that may not rise to the level of criminality.”

Watch the full clip above via Fox Business Network.