Newly-declassified intelligence on the so-called “Clinton Plan” included intercepted communications from a George Soros ally suggesting that Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign against Donald Trump was plotting a “long-term affair to demonize” Trump by linking him to Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

In addition, the Clinton campaign expected that “the FBI will put more oil into the fire” in assisting campaign officials with legitimizing the false allegation that the future president was working with the Russians to undermine the election.The revelations—based on intercepted communications allegedly involving Leonard Benardo, a senior official at George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, and Clinton foreign policy adviser Julianne Smith—shed new light on intelligence received by the U.S. intelligence community in July 2016, just before the FBI launched its politically charged Crossfire Hurricane investigation.

The explosive allegations—suggesting a coordinated effort to falsely link Donald Trump to Vladimir Putin as a way to deflect attention from Hillary Clinton’s classified email scandal—are detailed in a previously classified, now largely unredacted appendix to Special Counsel John Durham’s 2023 report on the origins of the Russiagate probe.The intelligence, reportedly shared with the FBI and other agencies, included emails attributed to Benardo describing an alleged scheme by Smith and others, allegedly carried out with Clinton’s approval. The emails are believed to have been initially obtained through Russian cyber operations.

“The media analysis on the DNC hacking appears solid… Politicization is on the table… Julie says it will be a long-term affair to demonize Putin and Trump. Now it is good for a post-convention bounce. Later the FBI will put more oil into the fire,” Benardo allegedly said in an email on July 25, 2016.Durham noted in the annex report that “Julie” appeared to be a reference to Julianne Smith.