Just Like That, Trump Loves The New York Times Again – By Eric Lutz (Vanity Fair) / May 3 2019
A Times report that the F.B.I. used an undercover investigator to probe the Trump campaign is fueling the president’s “spying” conspiracy.
George Papadopoulos leaves his 2018 sentencing hearing in Washington, D.C. Alex Wroblewski/Getty Images
It took Donald Trump next to no time to seize on a New York Times report that the F.B.I. used an investigator to probe his campaign in 2016. “This is bigger than WATERGATE,” the president tweeted Friday morning, in a sneak peek at a talking point he’s likely to beat to death on the 2020 campaign trail. Trump and his allies have long insisted that his campaign was the target of politically-motivated “spying” in 2016—a line echoed by Attorney General William Barr in recent comments to Congress. And although nothing in the Times story suggests the F.B.I. abused its power, its weaponization by the right is enough to trigger 2016 flashbacks.
What the report actually does is underscore the scope of the bureau’s “alarm” at Russia’s meddling efforts, and its attempts to determine the extent of that interference. Per the Times, in the early days of the Russia investigation, a federal investigator posing as a research assistant met with George Papadopoulos, the foreign-policy adviser whose drunken comments to an Australian diplomat triggered the F.B.I. probe into Trump’s campaign. “Was the Trump campaign working with Russia?” the investigator, a woman identified as Azra Turk, reportedly asked Papadopoulos directly during a meeting at a London bar. The meeting did not appear to yield much information. But the undercover effort reveals the extent of the F.B.I.’s concern about Russia’s attempts to make inroads with the Trump campaign.
The use of Turk, whose real name is not publicly known, was apparently part of the bureau’s scrutiny of Papadopoulos, ex-campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and Carter Page, another former foreign-policy aide. The operation was conducted discreetly, according to the Times, to avoid hurting the Trump campaign, and was undertaken with the assistance of Cambridge professor and F.B.I. informant Stefan Halper. Turk’s covert operation, as well as Halper’s activities, are under investigation by Department of Justice inspector general Michael Horowitz. Attorney General William Barr could release the results of that internal probe in the coming weeks.
Whether or not Horowitz concludes the F.B.I.’s effort was misguided is almost irrelevant at this point; Trump has already seized on the use of an undercover agent as evidence he was right all along. “Finally, Mainstream Media is getting involved,” he tweeted of the Times story. “Too ‘hot’ to avoid.” Like everything in the Russia investigation, the facts of the case are likely to be subsumed by politics, and will almost certainly become an attack line for the president as he seeks to exact revenge on his investigators. His spin on the Times report could also become a problem for Democrats looking to use the damning Mueller report in their push to oust Trump in 2020.
The “spying” narrative has long since taken hold among Trump’s allies. Lindsey Graham went on another fiery tear ahead of Barr’s Senate testimony on Wednesday, spouting Trumpian conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton and the deep state and promising to look into the origins of the Russia investigation. Barr, who cleared Trump of wrongdoing in a letter that Robert Mueller himself complained was misleading, has similarly raised concerns about “spying,” and promised to investigate. “I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal,” Barr said last month.
Comments like these have only fanned the flames among Trump voters, who are reportedly expressing their indignation by shelling out cash. Trump campaign advisers told The Washington Post that they had raised “more than $1 million” after the Mueller report’s release, and that Barr’s comments have “generally been helpful—especially his earlier assertion that there was ’spying‘ during the 2016 presidential race.”
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/05/trump-new-york-times-campaign-spying
