The FBI has reportedly been working in recent weeks to soften the blow if the identity of a top-secret informant who fed information to investigators early on in the Russia probe is revealed.
The Washington Post reported on Thursday that FBI officials have been taking steps to reduce the potential damage to other investigations the informant is involved in and protect associates, in the event that the source is outed.
The scramble to mitigate the potential harm comes as allies of President Trump home in on the informant’s role in the investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 presidential race.
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Trump himself claimed on Thursday that the Obama administration had intentionally planted the informant in his presidential campaign to spy on him and his associates, suggesting that the matter could end up being “bigger than Watergate.”
“Wow, word seems to be coming out that the Obama FBI ‘SPIED ON THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN WITH AN EMBEDDED INFORMANT,'” Trump tweeted. “Andrew McCarthy says, ‘There’s probably no doubt that they had at least one confidential informant in the campaign.’ If so, this is bigger than Watergate!”
The New York Times reported last week that a top-secret FBI informant had met with two former Trump campaign advisers, George Papadopoulos and Carter Page. That story did not say that the Obama administration had planted a spy within the Trump campaign.
But Trump’s allies have continued to suggest that the FBI may have intentionally spied on the Trump campaign. Rudy Giuliani, one of Trump’s lawyers, told The Hill on Thursday that if there was a government informant spying on Trump’s campaign it would be no “different that Watergate.”
“If it is true that they put a spy — or two — inside the Trump campaign, it is not different from Watergate, except it is Democrats doing it to Republicans, rather than Republicans doing it to Democrats,” Giuliani said.