The Department of Justice is launching a grand jury investigation into the Russiagate hoax in the wake of new revelations and declassifications.
Fox News was the first to report Monday evening that Attorney General Pam Bondi has directed her staff to open a grand jury investigation into the 2016 Russiagate conspiracy to tie then-candidate Donald Trump to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
On Tuesday’s show, Megyn was joined by MK True Crime contributors Phil Holloway, Ashleigh Merchant, and Dave Aronberg to discuss what the investigation means for former Obama administration officials, whether charges will be brought, and more.
The Criminal Referral
In mid-July, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard sent a criminal referral to the DOJ providing evidence that Hillary Clinton, former President Barack Obama, and members of his national security team manufactured and politicized intelligence to subvert the incoming Trump administration.
The referral came on the heels of the release of a declassified 2020 House Intelligence Committee report that analyzed the tradecraft used to compile a 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) at the direction of then-President Obama.
The ICA infamously concluded “Putin and the Russian government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him.”
But the declassified 2020 House report revealed serious flaws with the intelligence and methods used to craft the 2017 ICA. For example, it found the only classified information cited to claim Putin wanted to help Trump win was based on “one scant, unclear, and unverifiable fragment of a sentence from a single human report.”
The Grand Jury Investigation
The charges at play and exactly whom the grand jury is expected to target not yet clear, but legal scholar Jonathan Turley posted on X late Monday that, “while Obama enjoys immunity, others like [former CIA Director John] Brennan remain exposed.”
He flagged “perjury, obstruction and lying to federal investigators” as “obvious areas for exploration” by prosecutors, and added that he expects the investigation to rest with the newly confirmed U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro.
Merchant, who was responsible for derailing the RICO case against Donald Trump in Fulton County, Georgia, said she supports the grand jury investigation. “Why not look at it? I know there’s a lot of unanswered questions… so put people under oath, put them on the stand, have them actually testify… [and] see if their stories all match,” she said. “Because, as we’ve seen from live TV, a lot of times when you have people on the stand, stories don’t match, things change.”
Potential Defendents
Holloway joked there are no shortage people in D.C. lawyering up at the moment, and he said they have a lot of homework to do. “People who have testified previously might get called to testify before this grand jury,” he explained. “They are going to have to go through and… memorize almost verbatim every word of everything they’ve ever said on television, radio, podcast, streaming, or under oath because they can’t stray from that one iota. They’ve got a lot of work to do to make sure they don’t run into some problems with respect to perjury and false statements.”
To that point, Megyn noted there are some key dates to keep in mind as this investigation gets underway. During a sit-down with Maria Bartiromo on Fox News late last month, CIA Director John Ratcliffe discussed how the statute of limitations on certain charges for possible defendants could come into play.
“Virtually every federal crime is a five-year statute of limitations, and perjury definitely has a five-year statute of limitations,” Megyn noted. “Brennan… testified in private to John Durham, who was the special counsel who investigated some of the Russiagate allegations during Trump 1.0… on August 21, 2020… Hillary Clinton testified in private to John Durham in May 2022… Brennan also testified behind closed doors to House Judiciary in May 2023.”
In the case of former FBI Director James Comey, Megyn said the last time he seemingly testified publicly or privately on this subject was in December 2018. But if any of these acts are part of an “ongoing conspiracy” – which, she noted, would likely be the claim – they can be resurrected and used to keep the statute of limitations from from expiring.
Complicating Factors
With that in mind, Aronberg said he is “skeptical” of the latest Russiagate revelations and noted that Durham failed to get convictions when he prosecuted Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann and Steele dossier source Igor Danchenko on perjury charges. In a third case, ex-FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith pleaded guilty to altering an email that was used to support a surveillance application.
“It blew up in his face as the two trials led to acquittals… So, the DOJ doesn’t want that,” Aronberg said. “That’s the built-in protection. There are guardrails. If the prosecutors go down the road and start trumping up charges – to use a phrase – it’s going to come back to bite them, so they need to be careful.”
While Megyn believes the latest declassifications paint a damning picture of Clinton and the Obama administration, she acknowledged that specifics of the case are far from straightforward. “They are really complicated, and I think this is a problem that… this DOJ is going to have,” she said. “I can’t even tell you the number of hours I’ve spent reading materials on this over the past two weeks. I’m a lawyer, I’m a journalist, I do this kind of thing for a living, and I’m still confused.”
“So, they’re going to try to explain this to a grand jury in a way that is really simple and they can understand what they’re indicting and why,” she asked. “Good luck.”
You can check out Megyn’s full legal analysis by tuning in to episode 1,122 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.