Drew Thomas Allen’s Clinton Hoax, Obama Coup: The Declassified Story of the Trump–Russia Delusion is the book that previous authors on the scandal could only dream of writing. Published in 2026, it arrives with the full weight of Tulsi Gabbard’s declassifications as Director of National Intelligence, the Durham report, the Horowitz IG findings, and—most crucially—the long-buried Russian intelligence memos that the FBI received as early as January 2016 but chose to sideline.
While earlier works like Gregg Jarrett’s The Russia Hoax, Andrew McCarthy’s Ball of Collusion, and Lee Smith’s The Plot Against the President laid important groundwork, they were constrained by classified material. Allen’s book removes those constraints and delivers the complete, unvarnished picture.
At its core, this is not just another recap of Crossfire Hurricane or the Steele dossier. It is the definitive account that centers the Russian memos—the intercepted intelligence reports that explicitly described Hillary Clinton’s plan to smear Donald Trump by tying him to Russia as a distraction from her email scandal and Clinton Foundation controversies. These memos, which FBI leadership, including Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, reviewed, were not fabrications or disinformation. They were raw, internal Russian intelligence communications never meant for American eyes. And they were devastatingly accurate.
Allen meticulously walks readers through the timeline. By March 2016—months before WikiLeaks released the DNC emails and well before the FBI officially opened Crossfire Hurricane on July 31—the Bureau had already received reports stating that “the Clinton staff, with help from special services, is preparing scandalous revelations of business relations between Trump and the ‘Russian mafia.’”
Another memo noted that Clinton had approved a proposal from her foreign policy advisor, Julianne Smith, to “smear Donald Trump by magnifying the scandal tied to the intrusion by the Russian special services.” The memos even referenced backchannel communications, suggesting Attorney General Loretta Lynch was keeping Clinton’s team informed about the email investigation. Rather than pursue these leads as evidence of corruption at the highest levels, the FBI buried them and pivoted to investigating Trump.
The contrast is staggering. When the memos implicated the Clinton campaign, senior officials dismissed them as “raw” and “likely not credible.” Yet the same FBI elevated Christopher Steele’s opposition-research dossier—funded by the Clinton campaign through Perkins Coie and Fusion GPS—into the foundation for FISA warrants on Carter Page.
Steele’s claims (the “pee tape,” Cohen in Prague, Page’s alleged Rosneft deal) were never corroborated and later collapsed, but they were treated as gospel while genuine intelligence about Clinton’s scheme was ignored. This selective blindness wasn’t incompetence. It was deliberate.
Allen demonstrates how the operation evolved from a defensive Clinton campaign tactic into a full Obama administration effort. After Trump’s victory, the hoax did not die—it escalated. On December 9, 2016, President Obama personally ordered the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA).
Under CIA Director John Brennan’s direction, a hand-picked group produced a document claiming with “high confidence” that Putin interfered specifically to help Trump. This assessment became the bridge that kept the investigation alive.
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