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"Clinton plan intelligence" conspiracy theory

CONTEXT:

• #Dutch-obtained intelligence memos section
• #January 3 edits section

INTRODUCTION:

copied from #January 3 edits section in response to User:Bladerunner24.

To deal with the "Dutch-obtained intelligence memos" section properly, we need to understand some history and motives behind the "Clinton plan" conspiracy theory.[1][2] It's much too large a topic for this article, but, because Durham mentioned the phrases "Clinton plan" (or just "plan" when referring to it), "Clinton campaign plan" (six times), and "Clinton Plan intelligence" (65 times) in his report, and many RS have commented on it, it's obviously relevant to this article and will need a section, just not one written the way it is now.

Before I can deal with that content here, we need to come to an understanding of what sources are reliable and unreliable, and to do that we need to also get into NOTFORUM territory (IOW more about policies and guidelines, while not strictly about this article). The discussion will be based on RS and compliance with DUE and FRINGE, so it's definitely within our purpose here at Wikipedia, but not strictly about the topic of this page. So hop on over to my talk page (Dealing with "Clinton plan" conspiracy theory) where we are free to discuss this stuff. There I'll share some sources with you and explain how this all relates to unreliable sources and fringe conspiracy theories, and how DUE weight applies to how we deal with it. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 14:05, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

END INTRODUCTION

There are two competing narratives, a contest between facts and lies, and Wikipedia is a mainstream encyclopedia that assigns due weight to sources and their related narratives. That colors how we deal with sources and write the article, or in this case the "Dutch-obtained intelligence memos" section.

The current section does not do the topic justice, includes primary sources and framing that treat the conspiracy theory as if it's true, and violates FALSEBALANCE by juxtaposing the competing views as if they have equal DUE WEIGHT. The section is thus misleading and violates several policies. It needs to briefly summarize the much larger "Clinton plan" conspiracy theory, and do it from the mainstream, non-conspiratorial, POV.

Durham unsuccessfully tried to prove the supposed "Clinton plan" was a Democratic plot to frame Trump and "fabricate the Russia collusion hoax".[3] Rather than confirming the plan, Durham's descriptions of the dubious nature of the hacked emails was described by The New York Times as a "debunking".[3] The theory reinterprets normal and legitimate campaign behavior and concerns about the revelations about Trump's Russia connections as if mentioning them was a plot to unfairly tie Trump to Russia. No, it was normal and legitimate. No plot or falsehoods about Trump.

Not only do Durham and Trump's top people launder Russian disinformation publicly as if it's true, Durham buried information favorable to Clinton.[4] That behavior is consistent with the mission he got from Trump and Barr, which was to undermine the conclusions of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation and all other investigations, and there are a number of them. He failed on all counts. He and his investigation are thus suspect and unreliable.

The "Clinton plan" conspiracy theory is a denialist, fringe, attempt to relitigate[5] and undermine the conclusions of all investigations into Trump-Russia matters. Therefore, the Durham Report, the annex, reports from Grassley, Gabbard, Bondi, Patel, Ratcliffe, and others pushing their POV, are a poisonous pit of quicksand pushing falsehoods. These people are pushers of conspiracy theories about nonexistent election fraud. They push the "Russia collusion hoax" conspiracy theory. These efforts by Trump and his intelligence chiefs have been described as an attempt to rewrite history.[6][7] Those are reasons to not trust them. They are not RS, and the .gov sources they use to push these falsehoods and conspiracy theories from are therefore unreliable and have little due weight.

They are at best highly partisan opinion, and have no reputation for fact-checking, a key RS demand. In fact, they write ideas that are proven to be false statements, and they are doing it on .gov domains. Such content has little to zero due weight, and should either be ignored completely or only get passing mention if, and only if, it is also mentioned in a secondary RS, and then using that RS's framing and descriptions of what the .gov source says. Falsehoods should never stand alone. Whenever possible, we do not "leave it up to readers" to determine if it's true or false. Primary sources are tricky in that way, and we do not start there or dwell there. Starting with primary sources is normally forbidden OR. Instead, we start with secondary RS, get their narrative, their framing, and their POV, and then we apply that and their descriptions to the content from primary sources that they choose to mention and quote. We do not use primary sources to perform forbidden OR without using secondary RS to frame it.

Our RS and VERIFIABILITY rules do not give .gov domains any special status, so their content must be evaluated by the same standards we use for any domain, whether it's a fly-by-night blog post by 12-year old unknown Johnny, a personal website, a Tweet, an oped, an editorial, a book, or an article in a major RS publication like WaPo, written by a renowned subject matter expert with an impeccable reputation. We treat .gov sources the same way we treat all other sources. .gov sources publish all kinds of stuff, from totally neutral and nonpartisan official research, to investigations and announcements, or even the dubious partisan talking points, conspiracy theories, and fantasies of some politician they wrote late at night.

Now feel free to discuss. I suspect what I've written above will inspire some questions from you, so let's start there. I can explain and provide sources. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 15:42, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging @Bladerunner24: -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 15:51, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for all you've done!

Darer101 (talk) 22:39, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 22:40, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like a troll, I'd ignore it. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:35, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

There must be a misunderstanding, or even formatting error. Did you receive the correct email, which should say something regarding doxxing and sensitive situation? Not to mention that the doxxer as mentioned in the message has since been found to be likely a globally banned user BrillLyle who's evading the bans?~2026-92660-9 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 16:11, 10 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I forwarded the full email. Pinging @Xaosflux:

I don't really know what this is about, and don't want to get involved, so there may be reasons to keep this under wraps by email. I don't know. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:47, 10 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

No idea, I don't want to be involved in it. If someone has an oversight concern they should see WP:OS. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:21, 10 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 17:37, 10 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Jayen466 did actually help me contact the OS in like last year or so, but unfortunately the OS'er back then didn't do nothing about it. If I remember He even said that the OS email queue filters messages from email addresses of nonregistered users so that's another roadblock.

A WMF ticket was opened last year but things are stuck in the mud so far, and now hours ago I emailed stewards@wikimedia.org about it, only for them to push the ball around by saying that it's the wrong venue or queue. Relevant ticket number(s) are Ticket#2026020810001995 and possibly WMF ticket 121708, 122621 and 130974.~2026-91381-3 (talk) 17:45, 10 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]