A new whistleblower disclosure received by the House Judiciary Committee claims that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) started targeting former President Donald Trump in June of 2015 as part of a secret investigation ordered by former FBI Director James Comey.
The whistleblower’s disclosure, which was obtained by The Washington Times, claims that two undercover FBI agents were told to work as “honeypots” by infiltrating the former president’s 2016 campaign. The outlet noted that the agents traveled alongside Trump and his campaign staff members.
According to The Washington Times, the whistleblower claimed the operation did not target a suspected Trump campaign crime but was an attempt to uncover incriminating evidence against the Trump campaign.
The whistleblower’s disclosure claimed that the investigation “had no predicated foundation, so Mr. Comey personally directed the investigation without creating an official case file in Sentinel or any other FBI system.”
In addition to Comey’s involvement, the whistleblower claimed that Deputy Director Dave Bowdich and Paul Abbate, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Washington field office, also helped with the investigation.
According to the whistleblower disclosure, Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI in 2017, was one of the individuals targeted by the undercover agents.
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According to The Washington Times, the whistleblower claimed that the secret investigation into the Trump campaign was ended after a newspaper obtained a photo of one of the FBI agents and was preparing to publish it. The whistleblower claimed that the FBI’s press office deceived the newspaper by claiming that the picture was of an FBI informant instead of an FBI agent and that the informant would be killed if the newspaper published the photo.
The whistleblower’s disclosure to the House Judiciary Committee added, “The FBI employee personally observed one or more employees in the FBI being directed to never discuss the operation with anyone ever again, which includes talking with other people involved in the operation.”
A House Judiciary Committee spokesperson confirmed that the committee had received the whistleblower’s allegations and told The Washington Times that it “plans to look into them.”
Chris Swecker, a former FBI assistant director, told The Washington Times that if the allegations are true, the report would be a “booming, egregious violation” of the attorney general and FBI’s rules.
“It’s an unpredicated infiltration of a presidential campaign which is sensitive,” Swecker said. “It’s sensitive to the point where it would have to have been approved by the [attorney general] and … would have to be predicated. And in this case, I’m not hearing any predication. It would have to be on the books anyway, regardless.”
