Former Trump aide downplays meeting with possible FBI source

Former Trump campaign national co-chairman Sam Clovis is downplaying an interview he had with a possible FBI informant. 

Clovis, who serves as a White House adviser on the U.S. Department of Agriculture, described the September 2016 meeting as “academic,” and said he didn’t take notes because the source raised “nothing new.”

“There was no indication or no inclination that this was anything other than just wanting to offer up his help to the campaign if I needed it,” Clovis said on a radio show in Iowa, as highlighted by CNN. 

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Clovis said he was concerned the possible informant was attempting to “create an audit trail that would lead investigators on something” in the possible informant’s meeting with Carter Page, a Trump campaign aide that GOP lawmakers have said was improperly surveilled by the FBI on the basis of questionable opposition research. 

The White House adviser reaffirmed that the possible informant was not “embedded” in the campaign, as President Trump has suggested.

“That person had nothing to do with the campaign. They were not part of the campaign,” Clovis said. 

Trump met Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray on Monday, when he requested the FBI turn over to Congress all its memos on the possible informant. The officials have also agreed to review classified information related to its probe into Russian interference in the election with lawmakers.