On August 17, 2025, a wave of newly released documents and oversight reviews reignited one of the most contentious debates in recent American political history. According to reporting from The Hill and corroborated by Judicial Watch’s ongoing Freedom of Information Act litigation, these disclosures provide what some are calling the most conclusive evidence yet that the so-called Russiagate scandal was not merely a political misstep, but an orchestrated conspiracy involving top officials from the CIA, FBI, and the Obama-Biden-Clinton political machine.
The heart of the controversy centers on the 2016 U.S. presidential election, where allegations of Russian interference and collusion with then-candidate Donald Trump dominated headlines and congressional hearings. For years, the debate raged over the legitimacy of these claims, with both sides accusing the other of undermining American democracy. But the latest revelations, as detailed by Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch and a vocal advocate for transparency in government, have shifted the conversation from partisan speculation to calls for accountability and reform at the highest levels of the intelligence community.
At the core of this new wave of scrutiny is the infamous Steele dossier—a report financed by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC). According to the newly declassified documents, former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper not only relied on the now-discredited dossier, but also misled Congress and the public about its role in shaping official intelligence assessments. While they publicly insisted the dossier was irrelevant to the intelligence community’s conclusions about Russian activities, oversight reviews reveal that Brennan and Clapper prepared a classified, compartmented version of the assessment for President Obama and senior officials that cited the dossier to bolster key judgments about Russian interference. When sanitized versions were later released to Congress and the public, all references to the dossier had been scrubbed away.
Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation, referenced in both The Hill and Judicial Watch’s findings, confirmed that Brennan, Clapper, then-Vice President Joe Biden, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and FBI Director James Comey were briefed before the 2016 election on the Clinton campaign’s plan to fabricate a Trump-Russia narrative. Despite knowing the Steele dossier was riddled with falsehoods, the FBI used it to obtain Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants against Trump advisor Carter Page and to launch the Crossfire Hurricane investigation—an operation that, according to Fitton, was designed to sabotage Trump’s campaign and subsequent presidency.
Judicial Watch’s FOIA litigation played a pivotal role in exposing the inner workings of this alleged conspiracy. Court-obtained documents, such as the “electronic communication” that initiated Crossfire Hurricane, revealed the flimsy and third-hand nature of the intelligence used as pretext. Additional records showed that high-ranking Justice Department officials, like Bruce Ohr, maintained close ties with Christopher Steele and Fusion GPS, acting as conduits for anti-Trump smears even after Steele was dismissed as an FBI informant for leaking to the media. Ohr’s communications, according to Judicial Watch, demonstrated how so-called “intelligence” on Trump-Russia ties was being laundered to the Clinton campaign and other government insiders.
The plot, as laid out in declassified supplements to the Durham report, thickens further. Activists tied to George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, aided by operatives within the Obama-era FBI and intelligence community, allegedly sought to plant and spread the Trump-Russia collusion narrative even before official FBI operations began. Hacked emails and foreign intelligence, cited in these supplements, corroborated what Fitton and others describe as an extraordinary level of coordination between campaign operatives, federal law enforcement, and the media—a case of government being weaponized for partisan ends.
Leaders at the FBI, including Comey, Andrew McCabe, and Peter Strzok, as well as officials at the CIA and their superiors in the Obama White House, were reportedly fully aware of the fictional nature of the intelligence they were disseminating. Yet, they pressed ahead, smearing Trump and creating pretexts to spy on his campaign. “They were using the intelligence community’s credibility to spread what they knew to be their own fiction as if it were truth,” Fitton wrote in The Hill. The result: illegal warrants, fabricated evidence, and years of investigations that, in Fitton’s words, made a mockery of the rule of law.
Despite the mountain of evidence and exhaustive investigations, prosecutions have been few and far between. The Durham investigation, for all it revealed, resulted in just one modest plea deal and several failed prosecutions. Recent Judicial Watch lawsuits have further exposed how courts and legal systems were deceived with virtually no oversight or meaningful hearings. “If no one is held to account, Americans’ confidence in government will be shaken by the toxic message that in Washington, the bigger the crime, the less likely it is to be punished,” Fitton warned.
The calls for accountability are growing louder. Fitton and other critics argue that criminal prosecution of those involved—including Brennan, Clapper, Comey, McCabe, Strzok, and every enabler—must be pursued. “No spin can excuse years of perjury, abuse, and violations of civil liberties. It is not enough to claim that ‘mistakes were made’ or offer platitudes about trust. Laws were broken. Rights were trampled. Our democracy was threatened,” Fitton asserted in his editorial.
But prosecution alone, he contends, is not enough. The FBI and CIA, he says, need fundamental reform. Trump’s recent executive orders, aimed at ending what he calls the “weaponization of government,” are seen as steps in the right direction. “These agencies have proven incapable of policing themselves. From rubber-stamp FISA courts to politicized counterintelligence and persecution of whistleblowers, these agencies are built on unaccountable power,” Fitton argued, even going so far as to suggest that significantly cutting back the Justice Department and dismantling the FBI should be on the table.
While the debate over Russiagate has often been colored by partisan rancor, the latest revelations have brought rare unity among critics who believe that the integrity of American institutions is at stake. The public, Fitton insists, deserves more than reports and hearings—they deserve justice and a sharp reminder to the so-called deep state that, in America, the people are sovereign, not unelected bureaucrats.
As the dust settles on this latest chapter of the Russiagate saga, the question remains: Will accountability and reform finally follow, or will this be yet another episode where the powerful escape consequence, leaving the public’s faith in democracy more fragile than ever?
