The FBI uncovered a handwritten note by former FBI Director James Comey in which he wrote “HRC plans to tie Trump” and “HRC health” just weeks before Election Day 2016, despite it being tucked away in a long dormant safe the week of President Donald Trump’s 2025 inauguration, new legal filings in the U.S. government’s case against Comey reveal.
Comey scrawled the note, included as an exhibit in the legal docket, under an emblem showing that it originated from the FBI director’s desk. The note bears the date Sept. 26, 2016, which was 19 days after Comey received a Sept. 7, 2016 investigative referral regarding a plan by Hillary Clinton’s campaign to tie Donald Trump, her rival in that year’s presidential race, to Russia, as she sought to divert attention from her use of a private email server.
A federal grand jury in Alexandria, Va. indicted Comey on Sept. 25 on one count of making false statements and another of obstruction of justice.
Former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation James Comey, testifies via videoconference during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, September 30, 2020 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. (Photo by Stefani Reynolds-Pool/Getty Images)
Comey did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent through his publishing company Mysterious Press.
The new filings allege a conspiracy within the bureau to conceal documents about its handling of dual investigations into the two leading presidential candidates in the runup to the 2016 election. (RELATED: James Comey Says He Gave ‘Literally True’ Answers To ‘Ambiguous’ Questions Central To Indictment)
An FBI team charged with reform of the bureau in the spring of 2025 received a tip about FBI Room 9582, a “seemingly unused” secure compartmented information facility, used to store and review classified information. The team located Comey’s handwritten notes in a safe inside Room 9582, along with the original record of the tip about the “Clinton plan intelligence” from the CIA to Comey, known as a Counterintelligence Operational Lead (CIOL).
The FBI team also reviewed access logs for Room 9582, the new legal filings show. The logs showed an extended period of dormancy for Room 9582 until a spike of activity during the four days surrounding President Donald Trump’s 2025 inauguration.
Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel calls Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) a “fraud” while testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on September 16, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
New exhibits in the case also include a memo summarizing a request by the FBI’s public corruption unit dated July 21, 2025 to investigate thus unknown members of the FBI for possible concealment or removal of documents.
That investigative referral states that the CIOL that alerted Comey to Clinton’s plan to tie Trump to Russia, though previously believed to be missing, had been put in a storage closet adjacent to the FBI director’s office before being moved to Room 9582.
Comey testified under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 30, 2020, that he was unfamiliar with Clinton’s plan to tie Trump to Russia, saying “it doesn’t ring any bells with me.” (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: James Comey Hit With Bar Complaint Over Alleged Obstruction Of Congress)
Then-Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe declassified information about the “Clinton plan intelligence” in 2020.
In late July 2016, U.S. intelligence agencies received Russian intelligence reports alleging that Clinton had approved a campaign plan to stir up a scandal against U.S. Presidential candidate Donald Trump by tying him to Putin and the Russians’ hacking of the Democratic National Committee, according to Ratcliffe, who now directs the CIA.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard declassified more documents in July 2025 indicating that by September 2016, Russia’s foreign intelligence service had written reports alleging that President Barack Obama and other party leaders were “extraordinarily alarm[ed]” about the state of Hillary Clinton’s health and felt it could have a “serious negative impact” on her election prospects, according to a previously classified House Intelligence Committee report. Russian intelligence analysts wrote that Clinton suffered from “intensified psycho-emotional problems, including uncontrolled fits of anger, aggression, and cheerfulness.” They alleged Clinton had a daily regimen of “heavy tranquilizers.” The Russian analysts wrote that she suffered from “Type 2 diabetes, ischemic heart disease, deep vein thrombosis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease,” the House report states.
In addition, five burn bags on the floor of Room 9682 contained hundreds of pages relating to Crossfire Hurricane, the 2016 investigation into alleged ties between President Donald Trump and Russia, a discovery that FBI Director Kash Patel first spoke publicly about in June. Patel has since declassified and released some of those documents, including the classified appendix of the 2016 Durham Special Counsel Report.
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