“Just a reminder that right before Ukraine was invaded, Hillary was found to be guilty of spying on a sitting U.S. president.”
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Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton poses for a photo after being inaugarated as the first female chancellor of Queens University, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Friday, Sept. 24, 2021. (AP)
Facebook post rehashes false claim that Hillary Clinton was found guilty of spying on Trump
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Clinton has not been indicted on any charges stemming from alleged spying on Trump.
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This claim is another dramatic oversimplification of a recent legal filing by Special Counsel John Durham.
While developments about Russia’s war in Ukraine have overtaken the news cycle in the last three weeks, one Facebook post urges folks to remember another headline.
"Just a reminder that right before Ukraine was invaded, Hillary was found to be guilty of spying on a sitting U.S. president," read a March 14 Facebook post.
No, she wasn’t. And the post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)
The Facebook post appears to be alluding to a Feb. 11 court filing that attracted widespread attention from Republicans and right-leaning media, who frequently mischaracterized its findings.
The filing, part of a federal probe by Special Counsel John Durham, did not implicate Clinton or her campaign in engaging in an elaborate scheme to gather information on the former president.
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Durham’s 13-page document addressed a potential conflict of interest regarding the legal representation of Michael Sussmann, an attorney for a law firm that represented Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Sussmann was charged with making a false statement to the FBI during a meeting in 2016, where he provided the agency with data that may have demonstrated evidence of a communications channel between the Trump Organization and a Russian bank.
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The indictment alleged that Sussmann told the FBI he was not acting on behalf of clients, when the indictment claimed, he was secretly acting on the Clinton campaign’s behalf.
He has pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing. Clinton has been neither indicted on any charges stemming from the matter, nor found guilty of alleged spying.
We found no credible evidence to support the Facebook post. We rate this claim False.
Our Sources
Facebook post, March 14, 2022
U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, "Government’s Motion to Inquire into Potential Conflicts of Interest" in United States of America v. Michael A. Sussmann, Feb. 11, 2022
PolitiFact, Jesse Watters spins facts beyond recognition with claims Hillary Clinton paid to hack, frame Trump, Feb. 17, 2022
PolitiFact, In Durham filing, Scott exaggerates proof of Clinton campaign spying on Trump, Feb. 22, 2022
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Facebook post rehashes false claim that Hillary Clinton was found guilty of spying on Trump
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