NYT:FBI spied on Trump campaign
NYT confirms FBI sent undercover agents to bamboozle and spy on the Trump campaign
NYT:FBI spied on Trump campaign
NYT confirms FBI sent undercover agents to bamboozle and spy on the Trump campaign
The conversation at a London bar in September 2016 took a strange turn when the woman sitting across from George Papadopoulos, a Trump campaign adviser, asked a direct question: Was the Trump campaign working with Russia?
The woman had set up the meeting to discuss foreign policy issues. But she was actually a government investigator posing as a research assistant, according to people familiar with the operation. The F.B.I. sent her to London as part of the counterintelligence inquiry opened that summer to better understand the Trump campaign’s links to Russia.
The American government’s affiliation with the woman, who said her name was Azra Turk, is one previously unreported detail of an operation that has become a political flash point in the face of accusations by President Trump and his allies that American law enforcement and intelligence officials spied on his campaign to undermine his electoral chances. Last year, he called it “Spygate.”
The decision to use Ms. Turk in the operation aimed at a presidential campaign official shows the level of alarm inside the F.B.I. during a frantic period when the bureau was trying to determine the scope of Russia’s attempts to disrupt the 2016 election, but could also give ammunition to Mr. Trump and his allies for their spying claims.
Ms. Turk went to London to help oversee the politically sensitive operation, working alongside a longtime informant, the Cambridge professor Stefan A. Halper. The move was a sign that the bureau wanted in place a trained investigator for a layer of oversight, as well as someone who could gather information for or serve as a credible witness in any potential prosecution that emerged from the case.
A spokesman for the F.B.I. declined to comment, as did a lawyer for Mr. Halper, Robert D. Luskin. Last year, Bill Priestap, then the bureau’s top counterintelligence agent who was deeply involved in the Russia inquiry, told Congress during a closed-door hearing that there was no F.B.I. conspiracy against Mr. Trump or his campaign.
Get updates on this topic in our app
The Mueller Investigation
Updates on the Trump-Russia i
The London operation yielded no fruitful information, but F.B.I. officials have called the bureau’s activities in the months before the election both legal and carefully considered under extraordinary circumstances. They are now under scrutiny as part of an investigation by Michael E. Horowitz, the Justice Department inspector general. He could make the results public in May or June, Attorney General William P. Barr has said. Some of the findings are likely to be classified.
It is unclear whether Mr. Horowitz will find fault with the F.B.I.’s decision to have Ms. Turk, whose real name is not publicly known, meet with Mr. Papadopoulos. Mr. Horowitz has focused among other things on the activities of Mr. Halper, who accompanied Ms. Turk in one of her meetings with Mr. Papadopoulos and also met with him and other campaign aides separately. The bureau might also have seen Ms. Turk’s role as essential for protecting Mr. Halper’s identity as an informant if prosecutors ever needed court testimony about their activities.
Mr. Barr reignited the controversy last month when he told Congress, “I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal.” He backed off the charged declaration later in the same hearing, saying: “I think spying did occur. The question is whether it was adequately predicated. And I’m not suggesting that it wasn’t adequately predicated. But I need to explore that.”
Originally posted by Bashar Teg
FBI investigated criminal activity? cool 👆oh wait, forgot about the fee-fees: BAAAAAD!!! 👇
Pretty much. FBI was given actionable intelligence so they acted on it.
Thought the subject of the story, Papadickless guy, insist it wasn't the FBI, but the CIA. These Trumpers and their conspiracies.
Originally posted by BrolyBlack
You guys just going to deny McCabe telling Congress the dossier was used to start the investigation?
Look what we have here too:
Ukraine Embassy Says DNC Operative Reached Out For Dirt On Trump In 2016, Report Says
Originally posted by Surtur
Look what we have here too:Ukraine Embassy Says DNC Operative Reached Out For Dirt On Trump In 2016, Report Says
Is this collusion?
Originally posted by dadudemon
Is this collusion?
I would say there is no way that what Trump Jr. did could be collusion and this not be lol.
So anyone who feels that the Trump Tower meeting was proof of collusion would have to now acknowledge the DNC is also guilty of collusion with a foreign power.
Originally posted by Surtur
I would say there is no way that what Trump Jr. did could be collusion and this not be lol.So anyone who feels that the Trump Tower meeting was proof of collusion would have to now acknowledge the DNC is also guilty of collusion with a foreign power.
Doesn't the same apply the other way?
Originally posted by dadudemon
Is this collusion?
Originally posted by Surtur
I would say there is no way that what Trump Jr. did could be collusion and this not be lol.So anyone who feels that the Trump Tower meeting was proof of collusion would have to now acknowledge the DNC is also guilty of collusion with a foreign power.
👆
Originally posted by BrolyBlack
👆
And plenty of top democrats have cited the trump tower meeting as evidence of collusion lol.
Now we will get a chance to see the hypocrisy unfold: let us see how many of them insist on an investigation. After all, if they put country before party...one should be coming along.