‘The Real Russian Conspiracy’: Turley Explains How Media And Clinton Campaign ‘Derailed’ Trump’s First Term

GWU law professor Jonathan Turley appeared on Fox News Tuesday to explain the timeline that led to the derailment of President Donald Trump’s first term.

Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard released declassified evidence showing that former President Barack Obama and his national security team “manufactured and politicized intelligence” following Trump’s 2016 victory. During an appearance on “The Ingraham Angle,” Turley noted the role of the media in perpetuating the narrative.

“It’s fascinating the response of the media with the Russian collusion narrative that was funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign secretly. They denied that they funded the Steele dossier. But they took that, didn’t question it. And it turns out that all these other people had heard about Hillary Clinton’s plan, but these reporters that got Pulitzers for this didn’t seem to bother to pursue those types of leads,” Turley said.

Turley said pivotal moments unfolded as early as July 2016, when CIA Director John Brennan briefed Obama on Hillary Clinton’s plan to fabricate a Russian collusion narrative.

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“Laura, we’re finally seeing parts of the timeline filled in, and it’s creating a very damning picture. Remember, in July 2016, [then-CIA Director] John Brennan went to Obama and briefed him that Hillary Clinton was going to invent this Russian collusion theory to distract from her email scandal,” Turley told host Laura Ingraham. “And so that was back in July. And then we now know, because of recently declassified material, that months later, it was Brennan who intervened, overruled people at CIA, and put the Steele dossier, this infamous debunked report, into the assessment being used by the Obama White House at the very end of Obama’s term.”

Turley laid out how foreign sources were aware of the FBI’s involvement before the investigation was officially launched. (RELATED: Matt Taibbi Breaks Down What ‘Discarded, Rejected Pieces Of Non-Information’ Fueled Steele Dossier)

“That helped seed this whole Russian collusion investigation that the FBI then used to effectively derail the first term of President Trump. Now, what’s fascinating about this, Laura, is that they’re saying that this is coming from foreign sources that heard that the FBI was going to be part of this,” Turley said. “This is before the rollout, essentially, of this plan. This is the real Russian conspiracy. There wasn’t a Russian collusion conspiracy. This is that conspiracy of people that seeded this investigation and intentionally kept it going, even lying to the courts.”

In 2018, The New York Times and The Washington Post jointly received the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for their extensive coverage of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and its connections to the Trump campaign, despite doubts over the accuracy of certain claims.

The dossier played a key role in securing warrants to monitor Trump associates like Carter Page and has since been discredited. In October 2022, FBI analyst Brian Auten testified that the FBI offered Steele $1 million to verify the dossier, but he failed to do so.

In 2022, the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee faced fines from the Federal Election Commission for their involvement in promoting the discredited dossier, which was central to the collusion allegations. Senior intelligence officials also challenged key claims made by Brennan regarding Russian interference in the 2016 election, particularly his assertion that Russia sought to help Trump defeat Clinton.

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