Breaking: Papadopoulos: There was a “Spy” in the Trump Campaign

“EYES WERE EVERYWHERE IN 2016”

by Sharon Rondeau

(Oct. 28, 2018) — Just before 6:30 p.m. EDT on Sunday, former Trump unpaid campaign adviser George Papadopoulos tweeted that while he is not at liberty to divulge it now, there was a “spy” in the Trump presidential campaign of whom Congress is also aware.

“While I cannot disclose the information publicly, it’s a fact that both me and congress know who the SPY within the campaign was. Congress will likely include it in a report later on. Eyes were everywhere during 2016,” he tweeted. [sic]

Earlier on Sunday, Papadopoulos issued several tweets about his now-central role in the Trump-Russia “collusion” investigation launched by the FBI in late July 2016, including that he will appear as Tucker Carlson’s guest on Monday night.

Papadopoulos reportedly told the FBI that he knew of no collusion on the part of anyone in the Trump campaign, a key piece of information omitted from four FISA warrants applied for and granted to monitor the communications of Trump foreign-policy adviser Carter Page.

Page has not been charged with a crime and has stated that no one from the Justice Department nor the FBI has ever contacted him about his activities in 2016.

However, early last year, Papadopoulos was arrested for allegedly lying to the FBI during one or more interviews.  In September 2017 he accepted a plea deal, with sentencing not meted out until last month. If the plea deal stands, Papadopoulos will serve one day in prison of a 14-day sentence, 200 hours of community service, and a $9,500 fine.

In a Fox & Friends interview on Friday, the 31-year-old energy consultant said he is reconsidering the plea with his new legal team based on new information he has learned.

The Trump-Russia “collusion” narrative was leaked to the media in September 2016 by Russia “dossier” author Christopher Steele, an avid Trump opponent who reportedly was a confidential human source (CHS) for the FBI prior to that time.

Recent reports indicate that even after Steele was found to have leaked information about the dossier to Michael Isikoff of Yahoo! News, he continued to supply information to both the FBI and to Bruce Ohr of the U.S. Justice Department.

Ohr’s wife Nellie reportedly assisted in assembling the opposition research which was presented to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) for the Page warrants without the “exculpatory” information Papadopoulos provided to the FBI.

Papadopoulos told F&F co-host Brian Kilmeade Friday that he was “framed in many ways” by various individuals who approached him while he was living in Europe during 2016 and working on energy contracts for Israel and Cyprus.  Joseph Mifsud, once thought to be a Russian operative, has been identified by his own attorney, according to Papadopoulos, as having engaged with Papadopoulos on behalf of the FBI in Rome.

Mifsud told Papadopoulos that to his knowledge, the Russians had damaging information on Hillary Clinton in the form of at least some of the 33,000 missing emails from the private server she used as Obama’s secretary of state.  The FBI exonerated Clinton of wrongdoing in early July 2016 despite her having sent classified information over the unsecured server.

Following the meeting between Mifsud and Papadopoulos, then-Australian Ambassador to the UK Alexander Downer spoke with Papadopoulos in a London bar, with Papadopoulos reportedly referring to the Russians having “dirt” on Clinton.  “Exactly how much Mr. Papadopoulos said that night at the Kensington Wine Rooms with the Australian, Alexander Downer, is unclear. But two months later, when leaked Democratic emails began appearing online, Australian officials passed the information about Mr. Papadopoulos to their American counterparts, according to four current and former American and foreign officials with direct knowledge of the Australians’ role,” The New York Times reported on December 20, 2017.

Papadopoulos told Kilmeade he does not recall having spoken to Downer about emails, but, assuming it to be true, has recently said he was “framed in many ways” and has never had contacts in Russia.

On Sunday he tweeted that he became a target because of his “contacts in the energy business in Israel and Cyprus.”

For over 18 months, several congressional committees have sought the origin of the FBI’s counterintelligence probe into the Trump campaign.  In April, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes said that after having been permitted by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to view the “EC,” or “electronic communication” which began the investigation, he saw no intelligence which would have given rise to it.

On Thursday, Papadopoulos testified to members of the House Judiciary and Oversight & Government Reform Committees about his European contacts in 2016 relating to the “collusion” narrative, after which Oversight Committee member Mark Meadows (R-NC11) reportedly recommended that the committee make a number of referrals to the Justice Department for possible criminal prosecution.

Former Trump campaign aides Michael Caputo and Sam Clovis claim that they, too, were approached in 2016 by what now appear to them to be “informants.”

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Update, 7:29 p.m. EDT:  Just after this article went to press, Papadopoulos tweeted: