Smoking Gun Emails Uncovered on FBI, Clinton and the Russia Hoax

Summary

The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson: Detailed Summary

Episode Title: Smoking Gun Emails Uncovered on FBI, Clinton and the Russia Hoax
Release Date: August 1, 2025
Host: Ben Ferguson
Producer: Premiere Networks

Overview

In this compelling episode of The 47 Morning Update, host Ben Ferguson delves deep into groundbreaking revelations concerning the infamous Russia hoax that has long been a contentious subject in American politics. The episode focuses on newly declassified documents that implicate former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in orchestrating the Russia investigation to overshadow her own email scandal. Joining Ferguson is Senator Ted Cruz, who provides insightful analysis and discusses the potential ramifications of these disclosures.

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1. Unveiling the Russia Hoax

The episode kicks off with Ben Ferguson introducing the central narrative: the exposure of the Russia hoax and its purported connection to Hillary Clinton's email controversy. He emphasizes the gravity of the situation, stating:

"Hillary Clinton, we are now being told, greenlit the Russia hoax to hide her own email scandal."
[00:36]

Senator Ted Cruz elaborates on the significance of the newly declassified documents released by Senator Chuck Grassley:

"They reveal... confidential conversations between members of the Democratic National Committee and George Soros Open Society Foundation that occurred before the 2016 election."
[04:50]

These documents suggest that Clinton sanctioned a plan to tarnish Donald Trump by amplifying alleged Russian interference, thereby diverting attention from her own email issues.

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2. Hillary Clinton’s Role and Strategy

Senator Cruz provides a detailed account of Clinton's alleged involvement:

"Hillary Clinton personally approved a plan that had been proposed by her foreign policy advisor, a woman named Julianne Smith, to smear Donald Trump by magnifying the scandal tied to the intrusion by the Russian special services in the pre-election process to benefit the Republican candidate."
[05:30]

One pivotal piece of evidence is an email from Leonard Bernardo of the Open Society Foundation, dated July 27, 2016:

"HRC stands for Hillary Rodham Clinton approved Julia's idea about Trump and Russian hackers hampering US elections."
[06:10]

This email underscores Clinton's direct involvement in designing a strategy to utilize the FBI and associated technical structures to disseminate misinformation about Trump's alleged ties to Russian interference.

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3. The Steele Dossier and Funding Sources

The discussion shifts to the Steele dossier, a critical element in the Russia investigation. Senator Cruz asserts that the dossier was not an unbiased intelligence report but rather a piece of opposition research financed by Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC):

"The Steele dossier was designed to be a lie and it was straight out opposition research. It was paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign, it was paid for by the DNC."
[08:05]

He further explains how the funding was obfuscated through "legal fees" and highlights the dossier's role in initiating the FBI's investigation into Trump:

"This, this false oppo research document that was just concocted, it was just created out of whole cloth. It became the basis for, for then an FBI investigation."
[09:10]

The dossier, according to Cruz, was a deliberate attempt to undermine Trump's candidacy and, subsequently, his presidency.

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4. Media Complicity and Public Deception

Senator Cruz critiques the role of major media outlets in perpetuating the Russia narrative:

"The Washington Post and the New York Times both won Pulitzer Prizes for reporting on these lies, for repeating these lies, for being an avenue of propaganda and disinformation."
[09:45]

He argues that these institutions acted as "misinformation arms" of Clinton's campaign, both during the election and subsequently within government structures to destabilize Trump's administration.

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5. Legal Accountability and Challenges

The conversation turns to the prospects of legal accountability for those involved in the alleged scheme. Senator Cruz mentions the formation of a strike force by Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate the matter:

"Pam Bondi, the attorney general has created a strike force that is investigating these lies, investigating this cover-up."
[12:00]

However, he highlights significant hurdles, primarily the statute of limitations, which may impede prosecutions:

"The statute of limitations is designed to stop prosecutors from bringing cases on things that are many, many years decades old."
[12:15]

Despite these challenges, Cruz points out that some individuals like Andrew McCabe, former deputy director of the FBI, could face legal jeopardy for recent actions that fall within the permissible timeframe.

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6. Abuse of Power and Democratic Party’s Conduct

Senator Cruz does not hold back in his critique of the Democratic Party's conduct:

"They knew it was false and they were willing to campaign based on lies... Hillary Clinton according to these emails personally approved those lies."
[15:00]

He parallels Clinton's actions with broader patterns of abuse of power within the party, citing the treatment of Mar-a-Lago as an example of similar misconduct. Cruz emphasizes the erosion of democratic principles and the betrayal of voter trust by those in power.

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Conclusion

Ben Ferguson wraps up the episode by reinforcing the significance of these revelations and urging listeners to stay informed:

"Thank you for listening to the 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson. Please make sure you hit subscribe wherever you're listening to this podcast right now and for more in-depth news, also subscribe to the Ben Ferguson Podcast and we will see you back here tomorrow."
[15:30]

Key Takeaways:

• Declassified Documents: New evidence suggests Hillary Clinton orchestrated the Russia investigation to distract from her email scandal.
• Steele Dossier Funding: The dossier, foundational to the FBI's probe into Trump, was funded by Clinton's campaign and the DNC.
• Media's Role: Major media outlets allegedly perpetuated misinformation as part of a coordinated campaign.
• Legal Hurdles: While investigations are underway, legal actions face significant barriers due to the statute of limitations.
• Abuse of Power: The episode underscores concerns about systemic abuse of power within influential political circles.

This episode of The 47 Morning Update offers a critical examination of entrenched political strategies and their implications for American democracy. Through incisive analysis and the insights of Senator Ted Cruz, listeners gain a deeper understanding of the alleged machinations that have shaped recent political landscapes.

Transcript

[iHeart Podcast]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Senator Chuck Grassley]

The declassification report that was put out by Senator Grassley today. I'm glad you brought it up because this should be a story every outlet in this room should be covering. This is further evidence that Hillary Clinton approved the Russia hoax against President Trump. Her campaign financed it again, she approved it. And the FBI and the CIA were both weaponized to, as our director of CIA has said, accelerate this hoax against then candidates and former President Trump.

[Ben Ferguson]

You're listening to the 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson.

Good Friday morning. Nice to have you with us on the 47 Morning Update. And we've got one major story for you today. The Russia hoax. It's been exposed even more than you could imagine. Hillary Clinton, we are now being told, greenlit the Russia hoax to hide her own email scandal. And the even bigger scandal is the fact that now we have declassified documents that were hidden from you, the American voters. Senator Ted Cruz joins me to talk about what this means moving forward and who could be in trouble, including possible indictments and how Congress will respond.

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[Ben Ferguson]

Starts with it's the 47 Morning Update.

[Kurt Elliott]

And it starts right now.

[Ben Ferguson]

Story number one.

[Kurt Elliott]

All right, so Senator, where were you.

[Ben Ferguson]

When you found out the Russian hoax is now being exposed? And what was your initial reaction to Hillary Clinton greenlighting this? It's like for me, I was like.

[Kurt Elliott]

Yep, that makes sense.

[Ben Ferguson]

Yep, that adds up. Yep, that matches.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Yeah. Look, the, the evidence has been coming over the last several weeks. So Tulsi Gabbard released significant evidence that the intelligence community had been telling Barack Obama and the Obama administration that Russia was not trying to hack the election. They'd been doing that for months. We covered that in a previous pod. And then this week, the portions of the classified annex of John Durham special counsel investigation were released. And they were released by my colleague Chuck Grassley, who's the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. And I gotta say, it is stunning what is in these newly declassified documents. So they reveal, quote, confidential conversations between members of the Democratic National Committee and George Soros Open Society foundation that occurred before the 2016 election. And in particular, according to the declassified files, Hillary Clinton personally approved a plan that had been proposed by her foreign policy advisor, a woman named Julianne Smith, to, quote, smear Donald Trump by magnifying the scandal tied to the intrusion by the Russian special services in the pre election process to benefit the Republican candidate. And by the way, Julianne Smith was later appointed to serve as ambassador to NATO under President Joe Biden. So it turned out this was, this was a profitable role for her to be involved in this massive hoax. There's an email in particular that is, that is really remarkable. It was written by Open Society Foundation's senior vice president, a fellow named Leonard Bernardo, and It was dated July 27, 2016. And here's what it says, quote, HRC HRC stands for Hillary Rodham Clinton approved Julia's idea about Trump and Russian hackers hampering US elections. This is in July of 2016. That should distract people from her own missing email, especially if the affair goes to the Olympic level and his email continues, quote, the point is making the Russian play a US domestic issue in absence of direct evidence, CrowdStrike and Threat Connect will supply the media and GRU, which is the foreign intelligence arm of Russia, will hopefully carry on to give more facts. And look, I gotta say this is Hillary explicitly signing on and counting on, counting on the assistance. And then he goes on to say, he says that the Clinton campaign's plan included quote, raising the theme of Putin's support for Trump and pushing public opinion to quote, equate the Russian leaders influence campaign with actual election infrastructure hacking. And it involved distributing quote, the necessary information through the FBI affiliated technical structures, in particular the CrowdStrike and Threat Connect companies from where the information would then be disseminated to through lead leading US opinion publications. And that's another email from Bernardo. And then the email predicts, and this is, this is stunning, that the FBI would quote, put more oil into the fire of the Russia collusion narrative. This was an explicit plan by the Hillary Clinton campaign and by Hillary Clinton herself to use the FBI to spread a lie about Donald Trump. And it was in order to try to win the election. And thank God the American people were not deceived and they elected Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton.

[Ben Ferguson]

Who paid for it? And when it went to the FBI, how they categorized at the time the dossier and everything else it was paid for by Hillary Clinton partially her campaign. And then the Democratic National Committee they created out of thin air. And then they went to the FBI and even the FBI had classified, if I remember correctly, as quote, user generated and even offered, I think it was like a million dollars to steal if he could verify any of this dossier, which he never got paid on because he couldn't do it.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Well, the Steele dossier was designed to be a lie and it was straight out opposition research. It was paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign, it was paid for by the dnc. They paid over a million dollars and they hid the fees. They hid them as quote, legal fees to their law firms, Perkins Coie, they had 5.6 million in legal fees that were paid in one bill and they hid that amount in there. And once they created the Steele dossier that just made blatant lies about Donald Trump. They then gave it to the FBI and Obama DOJ and FBI officials were active in covering up that this came from the Hillary Clinton campaign. And understand this is during the presidential campaign. This is while the campaign is in full speed. This, this false oppo research document that was just concocted, it was just created out of whole cloth. It became the basis for, for then an FBI investigation. And that FBI investigation was then eagerly leaked to the press, and the press breathlessly reported on it. And the fact that the FBI was investigating it took it as confirmation that Vladimir Putin was behind the Trump campaign. And the entire operation was a deliberate and false, misleading campaign. They knew that it was. And, and, you know, here's one thing John Solomon says about the Durham annex that just got released. Quote, this is the smoking gun evidence inside the Durham annex. If it is authenticated by further investigation, it means liberal mega donor George Soros's team knew the whole Clinton plan for Russiagate hoax four days before FBI opened up the probe, and so did Obama, Brennan and Comey. This was a deliberate lie, and everyone involved in it knew they were lying. And they were lying, number one, because they wanted to effectively steal the election, mislead the American people. And by the way, the Washington Post and the New York Times both won Pulitzer Prizes for reporting on these lies, for repeating these lies, for being an avenue of propaganda and disinformation. So, of course, the Washington Post and New York Times are very reluctant to cover what's being released now because it shows that they operated essentially as misinformation arms of the Hillary Clinton campaign. They did it at first, hoping to win the election through deception. But then after the election was over, after Donald Trump was elected to his first term, they did it within the government to try to undermine the newly elected President of the United States. And understand, to do this, it takes a real contempt, not just for the incoming president, it takes a contempt for the voters. It takes a contempt for the democratic process. For someone that's in a senior government position, whether at the FBI or at the CIA or at the Department of Justice, to say, I don't care that the American people elected this president. I don't like him, I disagree with him, and so I'm going to abuse my government position in order to try to destroy the presidency from within. And this was not accidental. This was not based on misunderstandings. This was a deliberate lie, and they knew they were lying.

[Ben Ferguson]

You look at this and you say, okay, this is a massive scheme. Now, the question is, I go back to it. I feel like I ask you this a lot. When we have these issues come out, will there be any accountability for this? We know that there's some that were pardoned by Biden, for example, that there's the question of, was it the auto pen that doesn't come into play here with Hillary Clinton? There have been people saying, well, you're not going to be able to get anything here because it is what it is. Politics is dirty, get over it. Is this in the category of politics is dirty, get over it. Or is there more there?

[Senator Ted Cruz]

So look, I hope there is accountability. Pam Bondi, the attorney general has created a strike force that is investigating these lies, investigating this cover up. The challenge is going to be the statute of limitations. And look, a statute of limitations, it's ordinarily for something like this, five years. The statute of limitations is designed to stop prosecutors from bringing cases on things that are many, many years decades old. And there are a lot of reasons for that. But for most of this conduct, it is past the statute of limitations. There's some exceptions. So for example, Andrew McCabe, the deputy director of the FBI, lied to Congress and he did so within the last five years. And so McCabe, McCabe, of all of the players, probably faces the greatest legal jeopardy because he's got, if it can be demonstrated that he deliberately lied to Congress under oath, that is a felony that carries jail time with him with respect to other conduct, other lies done under oath. If it happened before the statute of limitations, the only way to bring a prosecution is for the prosecutors to argue that the information was concealed and that told the statute of limitations. That's a plausible argument, but it's difficult to prove. It's, it's, it's not court, courts don't agree with that often. And so that, that, that makes it more challenging to bring those cases.

[Ben Ferguson]

So is this more of an issue now? Of all right, the American people know they were lied to. They know that there's corruptions at the highest level in our government. They know that they did this while they were in power and they know they did it to also cover up. And Hillary Clinton has still not been held accountable. I mean, some could argue maybe on election day when she was running against Trump, but with the email scandal and the declassified documents, you look at what she did compared to what they rated Mar Lago over, it is disgusting. The abuse of power by the Democratic Party over the last two administrations when they've been in power.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

It is. And you look at a press release the Hillary Clinton campaign put out and it, it reads as follows, quote, Hillary for America statement on US Government formally naming Russia responsible for election related hacks. John Podesta, chair of Hillary for America, released the following statement Friday. Quote, the world now knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that the hack of the Democratic National Committee was carried out by the Russian government in a clear attempt to interfere with the integrity of our elections. The only remaining question is why Donald Trump Continues to Make Apologies for the Russians Trump's initial reaction to the hack in July was to invite further intrusions by the Russians even after he was reportedly briefs on the very findings that were just publicly announced by the US Government officials. He stood on a debate stage one week ago and played dumb about Russia's role in this hack. He has repeatedly praised Vladimir Putin, outlined a list of pro Putin policies and has done hundreds of millions of dollars of business with Russian interests. Every word of what that press release said is false. They knew it was false and they were willing to campaign based on lock lies and Hillary Clinton according to this emails personally approved those lies.

[Ben Ferguson]

Thank you for listening to the 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson. Please make sure you hit subscribe wherever you're listening to this podcast right now and for more in depth news, also subscribe to the Ben Ferguson Podcast and we will see you back here tomorrow.

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