Did FBI Director Kash Patel declassify records detailing Hillary Clinton's and Vladimir Putin's ties to the 'James Comey Scandal'? No, that's not true: The viral rumor originated from a comedian's page. Neither the FBI nor credible media organizations said anything about the purported "trove" of "intelligence documents".
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on X on July 11, 2025. It opened:
FBI Director Kash Patel Releases Sealed Documents Tying Hilary Clinton and Vladimir Putin to James Comey Scandal
The post continued:
Washington, D.C. -- July 10, 2025 In a shocking turn of events, newly appointed FBI Director Kash Patel has declassified a trove of sealed intelligence documents that detail a covert operation involving former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The documents, dated between 2014 and 2016, claim that Clinton, who was running for president at the time, collaborated with Putin to manipulate former FBI Director James Comey into launching an investigation into her political rival, Donald Trump. According to the files, Putin, fearing a Trump victory in 2016, conspired with elements within U.S. intelligence to smear Trump as a Russian asset.
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot by Lead Stories)
As seen in the screenshot above, the post contained a byline: "Jonathan Gregory." This was the handle of an account on Facebook from which the viral rumor originated (archived here) earlier that day.
Gregory's account described (archived here) its owner as a comedian working for the administration of President Donald Trump:
(Source: Facebook screenshot by Lead Stories)
Contrary to the notion that the person behind the account was affiliated with Newsmax, a Google search across that website did not show mentions of anyone named "Jonathan Gregory":
(Source: Google screenshot by Lead Stories)
The FBI's website contains a special section for the released agency's records. The newly published documents typically appear here (archived here). Lead Stories manually reviewed the records added in July 2025, but they covered other topics.
A search for the keywords seen here (archived here) across all files largely led to the previously known files declassified earlier.
Searches across Google and Yahoo (archived here) did not yield credible media reports covering the purported story about the allegedly existing, newly released documents:
(Source: Google News screenshot by Lead Stories)
(Source: Yahoo News screenshot by Lead Stories)
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Lead Stories previously wrote about two other stories that originated from Gregory's account and were mistaken for authentic news reports on social media. Those fact checks can be found here and here.
