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Bombshell report indicates Clinton, Soros group plotted to ‘demonize’ Trump

Published

2 months ago

8 minute read

From The Center Square

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“Julie [Smith] says it will be a long-term affair to demonize Putin and Trump. Now it is good for a post-convention bounce. Later the FBI will put more oil on the fire”

Newly declassified intelligence documents indicate that Hillary Clinton, her 2016 presidential campaign managers, and a top member of a George Soros group plotted to fabricate the Trump-Russia collusion campaign to distract the public from Clinton’s email scandal.

Declassified by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, the 29-page “Durham annex” from 2023 chronicles the Office of Special Counsel’s (OSC) investigation into purported efforts by the Clinton campaign and its allies to falsely tie Russia’s cyber interference attempts during election season to Trump.

In its investigation, OSC uncovered emails that appeared to be sent by Leonard Benardo, senior vice president of Soros’ Open Society Foundations, to people involved in Clinton’s campaign. Soros is a billionaire funder of Democratic campaigns.

The emails appear to show that Benardo engaged in discussions with Julianne Smith, one of Clinton’s foreign policy advisors, about how to use reports of Russian interference in the election to Clinton’s advantage and Trump’s detriment. Benardo later told OSC he had no recollection of writing the emails.

In an email dated July 25, 2016, Benardo told an undisclosed person that “politicization is on the table” and that he and Smith had been discussing ways to create a story casting Trump as “an agent of influence” in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attempts to undermine the election “in the interest of Donald Trump.”

“Julie [Smith] says it will be a long-term affair to demonize Putin and Trump. Now it is good for a post-convention bounce. Later the FBI will put more oil on the fire,” Benardo wrote, indicating that Clinton’s campaign planned to use the FBI to push the story.

While the FBI established early on that Putin ordered “cyber influence operations” to undermine faith in the U.S. democratic process, it found no evidence that Putin interfered on behalf of Trump.

But former President Barack Obama and his senior advisors reportedly pressured the Intelligence Community to assert otherwise, according to documents declassified last week. Obama has denied the allegations.

The Clinton campaign’s goal, it appeared, was to divert Americans’ attention away from her email scandal, since “Hillary is hardly good-looking as far as credibility is concerned,” Benardo added.

Clinton served as Secretary of State under the Obama administration from 2009 to 2013, where she used a private email server for official agency communications, putting thousands of emails with sensitive or classified information at risk.

According to a follow-up email by Benardo dated two days later, Clinton personally approved of the plan to fabricate the Trump-Russia collusion.

“HRC approved Julia’s idea about Trump and Russian hackers hampering U.S. elections. That should distract people from her own missing email, especially if the affair goes to the Olympic level,” Benardo wrote.

“The point is making the Russian play a U.S. domestic issue. Say something like a critical infrastructure threat for the election to feel menace since both POTUS and VPOTUS have acknowledged the fact IC would speed up searching for evidence that is regrettably still unavailable,” he clarified.

Upon finding the emails, the Office of Special Council questioned Benardo, who told them he did not know who “Julie” referred to and he did not draft the emails “to the best of his recollection.”

Clinton, when questioned by OSC, said the plan she apparently approved “looked like Russian disinformation.” Campaign Chair John Podesta and other advisors each denied the validity of the emails and each called the emails “ridiculous.”

Smith was also interviewed and said she recalled neither drafting or receiving the emails nor proposing a plan to Clinton or other campaign leadership to try tying Putin to Trump. She also denied enlisting the FBI to further such efforts.

But OSC found that the verified communications between Smith and campaign advisors implied otherwise. The same day Benardo purportedly sent the email about how the FBI “will put oil on the fire,” Smith texted a Clinton campaign advisor and asked them to “see if [Special Assistant to the President and National Security Council member] will tell you if there is a formal fbi or other investigation into the hack?”

The Clinton campaign advisor, whose name is redacted, replied that the person in question “won’t say anything more to me. Sorry. Told me she went as far as she could.”

Ultimately, OSC determined that “it is a logical deduction that [redacted] Smith was, at a minimum, playing a role in the Clinton campaign’s efforts to tie Trump to Russia,” and that available evidence “supports the notion that the campaign might have wanted or expected the FBI or other agencies to aid the effort” via a formal investigation.

“In short, neither the Office nor [redacted] have been able to determine definitively whether the purported Clinton campaign plan [redacted] was entirely genuine, partially true, a composite pulled from multiple sources, exaggerated in certain respects, or fabricated in its entirety,” OSC concluded, adding that regardless, the entire affair was “concerning.”

As of Thursday afternoon, Clinton and her former campaign advisors have not responded to the Durham annex’s publication, despite outcry from Republicans. The Trump administration is presenting the report as the “smoking gun” confirming recent allegations that Obama, Clinton, and the Intelligence Community created a deliberate smear campaign to delegitimize Trump’s first presidency.

“Based on the Durham annex, the Obama FBI failed to adequately review and investigate intelligence reports showing the Clinton campaign may have been ginning up the fake Trump-Russia narrative for Clinton’s political gain, which was ultimately done through the Steele Dossier and other means,” U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said Thursday.

“History will show that the Obama and Biden administration’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies were weaponized against President Trump,” he added. “This political weaponization has caused critical damage to our institutions and is one of the biggest political scandals and cover-ups in American history.”

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Inside Xi’s Fifth Column: How Beijing Uses Gangsters to Wage Political Warfare in Taiwan — and the West

Published on September 13, 2025

By

A new Jamestown Foundation report details how China’s Ministry of State Security and allied triads have been used to subvert Taiwan’s democracy as part of Beijing’s united front.

Editor’s Note

The Bureau has previously reported on how Chinese state-linked crime networks have exploited Canada’s real estate market, casinos, and diaspora associations, often under the cover of united front work. One of these groups, the Chinese Freemasons, has been linked to meetings with Canadian politicians, as reported by The Globe and Mail ahead of the 2025 federal election. The Globe noted that the Toronto chapter explicitly advocates for the “peaceful reunification of Taiwan.” The Jamestown Foundation’s new findings on groups active in Taiwan — including the Chinese Freemasons, also known as the Hongmen, the related Bamboo Union triad, and the China Unification Promotion Party (CUPP) — show that Taiwan is the epicenter of a strategy also visible, though less intensively, across democracies including the United States. The parallels — from Vancouver to Sydney to New York to Taipei — should alert governments that the “fifth column” problem is international, and it is growing.

TAIPEI — At a banquet in Shenzhen more than two decades ago, Chang An-lo — the Bamboo Union boss known as “Big Brother Chang” or “White Wolf” — raised a glass to one of the Communist Party’s princelings. His guest, Hu Shiying, was the son of Mao Zedong’s propaganda chief. “Big Brother Chang,” Hu reportedly toasted him, an episode highlighted in a new report from the Jamestown Foundation.

Hu would later be described by Australian journalist John Garnaut as an “old associate of Xi Jinping.” That link — through Hu and other princelings Chang claimed to have met — placed the Bamboo Union leader within the orbit of Party elites. Garnaut also reported that the Ministry of State Security (MSS) had used the Bamboo Union to channel lucrative opportunities to Taiwanese politicians. According to Jamestown researcher Martin Purbrick, a former Royal Hong Kong Police intelligence officer, such episodes show how the CCP has systematically co-opted Taiwanese organized crime as part of its united front strategy.

“The long history of links between the CCP and organized crime groups in Taiwan,” Purbrick writes, “shows that United Front strategy has embedded itself deeply into Taiwan’s political life.”

Chang’s global influence is not a relic of the past. The Bureau reported, drawing on leaked 1990s Canadian immigration records, that intelligence indicated Chang’s triad had effectively “purchased” the state of Belize, on Mexico’s southern border, for use in smuggling illegal immigrants into the United States. But Chang is more relevant than ever as fears of Beijing invading Taiwan grow. In August 2025, seated in his Taipei office before a PRC flag, he appeared on a YouTube program to deny he led any “fifth column.” Instead, he insisted Taiwan must “embrace” Beijing and cast himself as a “bridge for cross-strait peace.”

His denial came just months after Taiwan’s Ministry of Justice accused CUPP of acting as a political front for organized crime and foreign interference. Police suspected more than 130 members of crimes ranging from homicide to drug trafficking. Prosecutors charged CUPP operatives with taking $2.3 million from the CCP to fund propaganda. In January, the Ministry of the Interior moved to dissolve the party outright, submitting the case to Taiwan’s Constitutional Court. By March, a Kaohsiung court sentenced CUPP deputy secretary-general Wen Lung and two retired military officers for recruiting Taiwanese personnel on behalf of the PRC. According to court filings, Wen had been introduced by Chang to the Zhuhai Taiwan Affairs Office, which in turn connected him to a PLA liaison officer.

President Lai Ching-te, in a March national security address, warned that Beijing was attempting to “divide, destroy, and subvert us from within.” Intelligence assessments in Taipei describe the Bamboo Union and CUPP as part of a potential “fifth column,” prepared to foment unrest and manipulate opinion in the event of an invasion.

The historical record shows why Taipei is so concerned. Chang’s name has shadowed some of Taiwan’s darkest chapters. In the 1980s, he was suspected of involvement in the assassination of dissident writer Henry Liu in California. He was later convicted of heroin smuggling in the United States, serving ten years in prison. After returning to Taiwan, he fled again in 1996 when authorities sought his arrest, spending 17 years in Shenzhen. During those years, he cultivated ties with influential Party families. At the Shenzhen banquet, Washington Post journalist John Pomfret wrote, Hu Shiying introduced him as “Big Brother Chang,” signaling acceptance in elite circles. Garnaut, writing over a decade later, noted that Hu was an “old associate of Xi Jinping” and that Chang had moved comfortably among other princelings, including sons of a former CCP general secretary and a top revolutionary general.

These connections translated into political capital. When Chang returned to Taiwan in 2013, he launched the China Unification Promotion Party — a pro-Beijing group openly advocating “one country, two systems.” He declared his mission was to “cultivate red voters.” CUPP cadres and Bamboo Union affiliates became visible in street politics, clashing with independence activists and disrupting rallies. During U.S. Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s 2021 visit, they staged counter-protests echoing Beijing’s line.

The ideological warfare runs even deeper. A Phoenix TV segment from 2011 recalled how a Bamboo Union elder declared in 1981 that he “would rather the CCP rule Taiwan than have Taiwan taken away by Taiwan independents.” Chang himself has echoed this sentiment for decades. In 2005, he launched a Guangzhou-based group called the Defending China Alliance, later rebranded in Taipei as CUPP. His activism has spanned disruptive protests, nationalist rallies, and propaganda campaigns amplified through China-linked media channels.

Purbrick situates these developments within a wider united front playbook. Taiwanese triads and Chinese Freemason associations are courted as grassroots mobilizers, intermediaries, and psychological enforcers. A recent report from the Washington Post has also linked the Chinese Freemasons to the powerful 14K Triad, a global network deeply implicated in Chinese underground banking networks accused of laundering fentanyl proceeds for Mexican cartels through the United States. The triad–Hongmen nexus complements other CCP efforts: online influence campaigns, cultural outreach, and intelligence recruitment inside Taiwan’s military.

The implications extend beyond Taiwan. In Canada, Australia, the United States, Southeast Asia, and beyond, intelligence agencies have documented how PRC-linked triads launder drug profits, fund political donations, and intimidate diaspora critics. These groups benefit from tacit state protection: their criminality overlooked so long as they advance Beijing’s strategic objectives. It is hybrid warfare by stealth — not soldiers storming beaches, but criminal syndicates reshaping politics from within.

For Taiwan, the Bamboo Union and CUPP remain immediate threats. For other democracies, they serve as case studies of how united front tactics adapt across borders. President Lai’s warning that Beijing seeks to “create the illusion that China is governing Taiwan” resonates internationally.

Before leaving journalism to establish an advisory firm, John Garnaut himself became entangled in the political fallout of his reporting. He was sued by a Chinese-Australian real estate developer from Shenzhen, who had funneled large donations to Australian political parties. The developer, later publicly implicated in the case by an Australian lawmaker under parliamentary privilege, successfully sued Garnaut for defamation in 2019. Subsequent disclosures confirmed the tycoon’s implication in an FBI indictment involving United Nations influence schemes and notorious Chinese operative Patrick Ho, later linked to a Chinese oil conglomerate accused of targeting the Biden family in influence operations. Together, these episodes highlight the global reach of united front networks.

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Ghislaine Maxwell Proffer: A Daughter Acknowledges Her Father’s Espionage Shadows but Denies Epstein’s Sex-Blackmail Op Rumors

Published on August 23, 2025

By

Sam Cooper's avatar Sam Cooper

In July 2025, inside a sealed Justice Department conference room in Tallahassee, Ghislaine Maxwell spoke at length about her life with Jeffrey Epstein. Across two days of questioning, she confronted the themes that now shadow the American administration and some of the world’s most powerful men: was her father, Robert Maxwell, the root of a sprawling intelligence operation—one that extended through his daughter’s relationship with the mysteriously wealthy Epstein and reached leaders from Prince Andrew to Bill Clinton and even Donald Trump?

The session was not a cooperation deal or plea bargain but a proffer under limited immunity. Prosecutors could impeach Maxwell if she later contradicted herself.

Maxwell sat with her lawyers. Across the table were Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, FBI Special Agent Spencer Horn, and Deputy U.S. Marshal Mark Beard. Their questions probed Epstein’s fortune, his circle of elites, the persistent intelligence rumors, and his death.

On Friday afternoon, the Justice Department released hundreds of pages of partially redacted transcripts and audio recordings from the interviews. The White House presented this as a gesture of transparency amid backlash from Trump’s base and criticism from Democrats. The redactions, though extensive in places, still allowed readers to follow the central exchanges.

The closest Maxwell came to portraying Epstein as involved in anything “covert” or “nefarious” was in a curious recollection: “He showed me a photograph of himself with African warlords… He said he was in the business of finding stolen money for billionaires. He would take a percentage of what he recovered.”

Did Maxwell—who has already been convicted of perjury—lie again to shield powerful friends?

One exchange, centering on perhaps the most notorious and publicly recognized piece of evidence in the Epstein saga, suggests she may have.

Blanche: “The photograph of Prince Andrew with Virginia Giuffre has been described as one of the most consequential pieces of evidence. How do you respond?”

Maxwell: “It’s manufactured. Literally a fake photo. My London flat was too small to host such an encounter, and the date on the back doesn’t match flight logs. My friendship with Andrew made him trust Epstein more, but I had nothing to do with that picture.”

On Robert Maxwell and Intelligence

Blanche: “With respect to your father, there have been multiple questions about whether he worked for any intelligence agency. Do you have any knowledge about that?”
Maxwell: “I think—well certainly my father had a background in intelligence… I believe he did in the second World War. He was… a British intelligence officer. I think that… once you’ve been an intelligence officer, you’re kind of—always; it doesn’t mean that you’re formally employed.”

She added she had “no formal knowledge” of specific activities, but believed he “did help people.”

On whether Robert Maxwell ever introduced her to Epstein, she was emphatic: “They never met… I know they never met.” She said her father vetted Epstein through Bear Stearns leaders “Jimmy Cayne and… Ace Greenberg.”

Maxwell’s words were cautious, but telling. She essentially confirmed what intelligence veterans often describe: once active in that world, many never fully leave. By her account, her father lived as a businessman and politician but remained an informal node in intelligence—“trading business or ideas” with powerful people and institutions.

This amounts to an acknowledgment: Robert Maxwell lived and died inside the world of intelligence. His role as publisher, financier, and political broker likely made him a valuable cutout, and that was likely a profitable arrangement for his family. Plausible reporting over decades has strongly supported ties to MI6 and Mossad. The most persistent allegations involve the sale of bugged PROMIS software to U.S. government agencies on behalf of Israel’s Mossad, and financial dealings with Soviet bloc actors. None of these claims have been proven in court. But the limited comments of Ghislaine Maxwell suggest she knew her father’s business well.

On Epstein, Mossad, CIA, and the FBI

Blanche: “Have you ever had any contact… from Mossad…?”
Maxwell: “Well, not deliberately… Not deliberately.”

Blanche: “Did you ever think that Mr. Epstein was getting any money from any intelligence agency, including Mossad?”
Maxwell: “Well, I don’t believe so, but I wouldn’t know. I mean, I would be very surprised if he did. I don’t think so. No.”

Horn: “CIA? DIA?”
Maxwell: “I don’t think so. I just don’t think he had the wherewithal, and I think that whole aspect is bullshit.”

Her denials stand in contrast with reasonably credible, though not court-validated, media reporting. In 2019, journalist Vicky Ward reported in The Daily Beast that a former White House official said they had heard Alexander Acosta—then U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, who handled Epstein’s 2007 plea deal at the end of the George W. Bush presidency—tell Trump transition interviewers in 2017: “I was told Epstein ‘belonged to intelligence’ and to ‘leave it alone,’” adding that Epstein was “above his pay grade.”

Epstein’s Suspicious Wealth

Blanche: “How did Epstein make his money?”
Maxwell: “He started as a math teacher at Dalton. From there he was hired by Bear Stearns… At Bear Stearns, he developed some new type of trading system—a trading vehicle. Then, after a disagreement, he left. That’s when he said he was in the business of finding stolen money for billionaires. He would take a percentage of what he recovered. But I was not part of his business world, except tangentially.”

She identified “very important clients”: Les Wexner—for whom Epstein “structured or restructured The Limited,” handled “his entire personal finances,” and “all of the investment strategy” (she speculated the 71st-Street townhouse, the vast Upper East Side mansion that became Epstein’s New York base, factored into compensation); Leon Black—“the same as what he did for Wexner”; another connected female in their circle provided the—“same help in business,” and even “contracts for the maids”; and there was an unnamed wealthy Ohio woman with “the largest Klein painting.”

Rumors have long swirled that Epstein’s fortune was less about finance and more about leverage — that his friendships with billionaires, politicians, and world leaders provided opportunities for kompromat, even blackmail. Investigators, journalists, and critics have speculated that his homes may have doubled as “honey traps,” recording powerful men in compromising situations to secure influence.

On blackmail: “Never. No… I thought he was a legitimate businessman, very conscientious, very good at math.”

On Clinton, Trump, Barak, and Movie Stars

Blanche: “You’ve been named on flight logs with President Clinton. How would you describe his relationship with Mr. Epstein?”
Maxwell: “President Clinton was my friend. Not Epstein’s… Clinton traveled on Epstein’s plane twenty-six times, or whatever the flight logs say. I was there. He never received a massage. I never saw anything improper.”

Blanche: “Did you ever see Mr. Clinton participate in massages or any improper behavior with young women?”
Maxwell: “No. Never. I was there. He never received a massage. I never saw anything improper.”

On specifics, she described joint travel:

  • Cuba, where she said Clinton met Fidel Castro.
  • Italy, a Vatican visit with Clinton aide Mark Middleton and Middleton’s wife to see Henry VIII’s divorce documents.
  • Africa, where Clinton flew with Chris Tucker and Kevin Spacey aboard Epstein’s jet.

She also volunteered: “I was very central in the ramp-up [of] the Clinton Global Initiative” and suggested Epstein “may have helped me help them” financially—without details.

Blanche: “What about Donald Trump? Your name and his are often linked through Epstein.”
Maxwell: “My father knew Trump. I admired him… Trump was never inappropriate with anybody. Never.”

Blanche: “Did you ever see Mr. Trump at Epstein’s homes or on his planes?”
Maxwell: “No. I never saw anything like that. I never saw him in any improper context with Epstein.”

Horn: “We’ve seen reports of Epstein’s relationship with Ehud Barak. Given your father’s deep ties to Israel, what was your impression of that connection?”
Maxwell: “I can think of Ehud Barak, yes. But I don’t know the details of their relationship. My father loved Israel, so I pay attention to it. We have ties to Israel. But I can’t tell you more.”

On the “Black Book”

Blanche: “Was there a client list? A black book of names?”
Maxwell: “There is no list. We’ll start with that… Nothing like that.”

On Epstein’s Prison Death

Maxwell said she does not believe Epstein killed himself, but also rejected the idea that he was silenced to protect powerful figures.

“I do not believe he died by suicide, no,” Maxwell said.

When asked if she had any theory about who might have killed him, she replied, “I don’t.” Pressed further on whether she thought Epstein was murdered to “keep him quiet” because he had information about “rich and powerful people,” she answered, “I do not have any reason to believe that.”

“And I also think it’s ludicrous,” she added, noting that if such people had wanted him dead, “they would’ve had plenty of opportunity when he wasn’t in jail.”

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