A new court filing from Acting US Attorney Lindsey Halligan has raised questions about what former FBI Director James Comey knew regarding the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation, and revealed that Comey had anticipated Clinton winning the 2016 election. 

Earlier in 2025, the FBI uncovered a handwritten note inside a burn bag stored in a sealed, unused Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) at FBI headquarters.

The September 2016 note, which prosecutors say was written by Comey himself, references the “HRC plan to tie Trump,” acknowledging that the former FBI director was aware of a campaign-driven effort to link Donald Trump to the Russia-gate hoax and that Comey knew from the outset that the Russia collusion narrative was a Hillary Clinton campaign fabrication.

According to Just the News, prosecutors have also uncovered Comey’s personal emails that further implicate him in the politicization of the 2016 election. The correspondence reveals Comey anticipated working under a President-elect Hillary Clinton, and that he received updates from his close associate, Dan Richman, about efforts to give guidance to reporters at The New York Times.

“Well done, my friend. Who knew this would [be] so uh fun,” Comey wrote to Richman in early November 2016.

In a late October 2016 email, Comey went even further, writing: “Someday they will figure it out. And as [Individual 1 and Individual 2] point out, my decision will be one a president-elect Clinton will be very grateful for (although that wasn’t why I did it).”

Halligan and her deputy, Tyler Lemmons, filed the emails as exhibits in a federal case rejecting Comey’s claim that he was maliciously prosecuted for misleading Congress. Their filing asserts that Comey not only knew about but also encouraged Richman’s media outreach regarding the Clinton email investigation.

“Consistent with the above-described correspondence, Richman corresponded extensively with members of the media regarding or on behalf of the defendant, including in an anonymous capacity,” prosecutors wrote.

The date of Comey’s handwritten note, September 26, 2016, shows it came just days after he officially received a referral outlining Clinton’s plan to link Trump to Russia. Instead of halting the investigation, Comey escalated it.

In July, FBI Director Kash Patel found the burn bags filled with documents related to the Trump-Russia probe, stashed in a little-known room deep within the FBI’s Hoover Building. “Burn bags” are normally used to destroy outdated classified materials, but it remains unclear whether these documents were missed during destruction or intentionally preserved.

Among them was a classified annex to former Special Counsel John Durham’s 2023 report, which scrutinized the origins of the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation. According to Fox News, the 29-page appendix details sensitive intelligence that Durham reviewed.

The FBI’s probe culminated in Robert Mueller’s 2019 report, which confirmed no evidence of Trump-Kremlin collusion. But by then, the damage had already been done. Durham’s later investigation concluded that “Crossfire Hurricane” was “seriously flawed” and lacked credible justification.

Patel, who served as chief investigator for the House Intelligence Committee’s 2017 review, previously told Joe Rogan that he found what he described as a hidden room full of concealed materials.

“They locked the key and hid access and just said, ‘No one’s ever gonna find this place,’” Patel said.

The new revelations come amid broader allegations that Obama-era officials sought to undermine Trump’s presidency. Recently, Tulsi Gabbard released what she called evidence of a “treasonous conspiracy” by senior officials, including John Brennan and James Clapper, both of whom have denied the claims as “patently false.”

According to Gabbard’s report, before Comey’s intervention, US intelligence agencies were prepared to conclude that Russia had no measurable impact on the 2016 election, a finding that could have ended the investigation years earlier.

Comey Note by Hannah Nightingale