On Tuesday night’s The Briefing, MSNBC’s Jen Psaki ran a segment about the recently declassified Durham annex in relation to the Russia collusion hoax. The new document released by Senator Chuck Grassley appeared to shed more light on Hillary Clinton's involvement in the conspiracy to use the idea of collusion to explain President Trump’s 2016 win. Despite new evidence, Psaki called the documents completely fake and still pushed a Russian collusion narrative.
Psaki claimed the entire document was false based off of a New York Times report that omitted the full truth:
Except the supposed smoking gun that they’re all talking about is an email included in the Durham reports annex. You know, the last investigation that Trump and his media allies said would prove absolutely that Russian influence in the 2016 election was a hoax. Now, as the New York Times put it, what the newly released details show is actually almost precisely the opposite of what Trump World is now claiming. Here’s what it says, quote, “the report shows that a purported email that Trump supporters have long tried to portray as a smoking gun is instead most likely a fake.”
A fake made by, get this, this is quite a detail, Russian spies. Well, whoopsie daisy there, isn't it? I mean, aside from waving a shiny ball around to get their favorite lapdogs to cover, it’s completely unclear what this latest investigation is even about. Well, that's what it's about, probably, waving a shiny ball.
Psaki claimed the emails from Leonard Benardo, by way of a George Soros-funded think tank, stated Hillary Clinton's plans to link Trump to Russian collusion were fabricated by Russian spies. This conclusion omitted the truth because Durham was never able to prove the emails true or false. Despite this, the document expressed that analysts and officers who were interviewed said their best assessment was that the Benardo emails were likely authentic (pg. 11).
“The office’s best assessment is that the July 25th and July 27th emails that purport to be from Benardo were ultimately a composite of several emails that were obtained through Russian intelligence hacking of the U.S.-based Think Tanks.”
For Psaki to call the reports totally fake was bad reporting. The document said some of the emails were composites of real emails actually hacked by the Russians. It confirmed the Russians hacked many think tank targets and details of other evidence corroborating that the “Clinton Plan” was a real thing the Russians discovered was also in the documents.
Psaki then moved the goal posts by bringing up how Obama and his administration had nothing to do with linking Russian election interference with Trump's win:
Despite a lot of pressure from the outside, we — those of us all in the Obama White House didn't really say much about it. Neither did the intelligence community, that was criticized too at the time. In fact, the Obama administration didn't put out anything until September of 2016, anything of substance really, that is.
She said this despite the fact that DNI Tulsi Gabbard's document release claimed Obama officials leaked false statements to media outlets. In the Durham Annex (pg. 18) it stated that on August 3rd CIA Director John Brennan briefed President Barack Obama, VP Joe Biden, DNI James Clapper, and FBI Director James Comey on Hillary’s plan to stir up a scandal relating to Russian collusion.
This meant Obama and his administration knew the origin of these reports were coming from either the Clinton campaign or Russian disinformation, but still didn’t have the FBI take appropriate investigative steps to verify the reports. They essentially saw Hillary pushing an unverified narrative a month before their official findings and nobody looked deeper into it.
On October 7th, 2016 Hillary tweeted out citing Russian collusion with Trump, perpetrating the hoax further.
Despite all the recent evidence coming out, Psaki still pushed the 2016 narrative:
They did a lot more of it, but if anyone should be questioning the approach of the Obama administration at the time, the last person, last, who is justified to do so is Donald Trump. I mean, without Russia, he might just be playing bad golf and eating burgers at Mar-a-Lago.
Psaki claimed that “without Russia” Trump wouldn’t have won the 2016 election. Even in light of evidence to the contrary, the media will still lie straight to your face.
The transcript is below. Click "expand" to view:
MSNBC’s The Briefing With Jen Psaki
9:40:31 PM ET
August 5th, 2025
JEN PSAKI: Watergate look like a jaywalking ticket everyone! That was like a garble of a word salad all of there in those clips, but it sounds bad, they made it sound really bad. Except the supposed smoking gun that they’re all talking about is an email included in the Durham reports annex. You know, the last investigation that Trump and his media allies said would prove absolutely that Russian influence in the 2016 election was a hoax. Now, as the New York Times put it, what the newly released details show is actually almost precisely the opposite of what Trump World is now claiming. Here’s what it says, quote, “the report shows that a purported email that Trump supporters have long tried to portray as a smoking gun is instead most likely a fake.”
A fake made by, get this, this is quite a detail, Russian spies. Well, whoopsie daisy there, isn't it? I mean, aside from waving a shiny ball around to get their favorite lapdogs to cover, it’s completely unclear what this latest investigation is even about. Well, that's what it's about, probably, waving a shiny ball.
For those who remember, and I definitely do, because I lived through it in the White House back in June of 2016. It was the company CrowdStrike and the Clinton campaign who claimed that Russia was meddling in the election. Despite a lot of pressure from the outside, we — those of us all in the Obama White House didn't really say much about it. Neither did the intelligence community, that was criticized too at the time. In fact, the Obama administration didn't put out anything until September of 2016, anything of substance really, that is. And even that was a statement that took weeks to negotiate with Republican leadership and was watered down by Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The statement basically encouraged states to protect their election infrastructure. It was not controversial, really at all, it didn't mention the release of hacked Clinton emails, didn't even mention Putin
And the intelligence community didn't put anything out about Russia's intervention until October 7th, which basically blamed Russia for the release of hacked emails from Hillary Clinton's server. Did not assert they were trying to elect Trump. It just stated, quote, “the Russian government directed the recent comprises of emails from U.S. persons and institutions, including from U.S. political organizations,” and again encouraged states to protect their infrastructure because that was the concern at the time. Admittedly, it's all pretty weak stuff in retrospect, given what we know now. I mean, as my former colleague Ben Rhodes put it, “if you look at the October statement from the intelligence community, all it talks about is that the Russians hacked and released some of the material, which I think was only a small piece of their information war. My own view is we could have done more and said more, certainly about the information war and fake news dissemination.” That's all true, that's all true, anyone who lived through it knows that.
I mean, with sounding the alarm about the massive disinformation campaign have changed the outcome of the 2016 election? Maybe not, but there were a lot of lessons learned from that period, a lot that impacted how the Biden administration, which included a number of the same people in positions of power and the intelligence community, more aggressively handled the declassification of information. They did a lot more of it, but if anyone should be questioning the approach of the Obama administration at the time, the last person, last, who is justified to do so is Donald Trump. I mean, without Russia, he might just be playing bad golf and eating burgers at Mar-a-Lago.
