Clinton plan intelligence conspiracy theory

"Clinton plan intelligence" is an unproven conspiracy theory promoted by the Trump administration. It is based on Russian intelligence material and hacked and manipulated emails described by journalists and investigators as likely Russian disinformation. It alleges that Hillary Clinton approved a plan to "falsely" link Donald Trump to Russian election interference. The phrase's wording, with his addition of "falsely", was coined by special counsel John Durham to describe allegations that Hillary Clinton, her 2016 presidential campaign, and senior Obama administration officials developed the purported plan to distract from Clinton's email controversy.

The purported emails were referenced in Russian memoranda obtained in 2016 by Dutch intelligence after it hacked into Russian intelligence systems. The material was shared with the U.S. intelligence community, which treated it with caution, citing the possibility that it had been exaggerated or deliberately mixed with disinformation. The material was kept in a classified annex to the Durham report, which was not publicly released until two years after the main report. Durham's material also included communications between two Russian spies discussing plans to fabricate the narrative involving Hillary Clinton that later underlay the alleged "Clinton plan".

In his 2023 final report, Durham investigated the alleged plan, acknowledging uncertainty about its accuracy and finding no evidence that Clinton or government officials coordinated a scheme to fabricate evidence against Trump. The New York Times characterized portions of Durham's analysis as a "debunking" of the central allegation, noting that his discussion of the emails described them as likely composites derived from unrelated hacked material.

On July 31, 2025, during Trump's second administration, the annex was declassified and released "mere hours before the first Trump-Biden debate", a timing that was criticized and described as part of renewed efforts by Trump administration officials and allies to relitigate and challenge existing investigative findings regarding Russian interference in the 2016 election. Commentators described these efforts as attempts to rewrite the history of the 2016 election and to challenge the findings of both Mueller's Trump-Russia investigation and the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane investigation.