Trump campaign vet: Informant used me to get to Papadopoulos
Sam Clovis, a former national co-chairman of the Trump campaign, is one of three Trump figures known to have been contacted by FBI informant Stefan Halper during the 2016 presidential campaign. Clovis received an email, out of the blue, from Halper, whom he did not know, on August 29, 2016 – after Halper had been in touch with Carter Page and just before he contacted George Papadopoulos.
Page and Papadopoulos were peripheral, sometime, volunteer Trump foreign policy advisers, but they are key figures in the investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to rig the 2016 election. Clovis, who is not suspected of any wrongdoing, has testified and been interviewed for a total of 19 hours, by his own count, before special counsel Robert Mueller's investigators, before Mueller's grand jury, and before the House and Senate intelligence committees.
During all that testifying, Clovis never knew about Halper's connection to the FBI. Only recently, from news reports, has Clovis learned about Halper's true role. And that has prompted Clovis to re-play his brief and seemingly inconsequential encounter with Halper in light of a wealth of new information.
It began with that August 29, 2016 email. Here is the complete text image above:
Halper's note to Clovis – they worked out logistics and met at Clovis' hotel, the Doubletree Inn in Crystal City, Virginia, a couple of days later – was premised on his approach to Page. And it seemed of a piece with Halper's approach, the very next day, to Papadopoulos. But the actual content of their meeting has left Clovis wondering what Halper was up to.
He wasn't wondering at the time – Clovis thought the meeting was so inconsequential that he did not report it up the chain at the Trump campaign, as he would have done if he had met someone who might be important to the campaign or who might be seeking a job. Only now, after reports that Halper was an informant for the FBI, has Clovis mentally gone back over their meeting in an attempt to figure things out.
Halper mentioned only briefly, and in passing, that he had met with Page, Clovis recalled when we discussed the meeting recently. Instead, Halper stressed his academic research, mostly about China and trade.
"It was about China," Clovis said. "It had nothing to do with emails. No mention of Russia. No mention of Hillary Clinton. No mention of her campaign. Only a mention in passing that he had met with Carter Page. Other than that, it was a discussion of his research and what he thought about China."
"It was like two guys sitting in the faculty lounge talking," Clovis continued. "It was so innocuous I never reported it back to headquarters. It did not raise any antennas or red flags or something we needed to be on guard against."
I asked if Halper volunteered to work for the campaign, or asked to be part of it. "No, not at all," Clovis said. But: "He said he was willing to share the research if it would be useful to our foreign policy effort."
That soft offer to help was apparently consistent with what Halper did earlier with Page. It is always hard to discern the exact meaning of Page's statements, but Page has tweeted a line from an email he says he sent to the campaign on July 16, 2016 regarding Halper. Halper – Page referred to him as the professor – "offered a range of possibilities regarding how he and the University might be able to help," Page wrote.
Halper's behavior with Papadopoulos appears to have been quite different. Chuck Ross of the Daily Caller has reported that, "Sources familiar with Papadopoulos's version of their meetings said Halper randomly asked Papadopoulos whether he knew about Democratic National Committee emails that had been hacked and leaked by Russians."
Ross continued: "Papadopoulos strongly denied the allegation, sources familiar with his version of the exchange have told TheDCNF. Halper grew agitated and pressed Papadopoulos on the topic. Papadopoulos believes that Halper was recording him during some of their interactions, sources said."
That account could not be more different from Clovis's experience with Halper. So much so that Clovis believes Halper had very specific purposes in approaching the Trump figures he approached.
"This is just my speculation – I have no knowledge," Clovis told me. "I think [Halper] was using his meeting with me to give him bona fides to talk to George Papadopoulos. He used Carter Page to get to me and he used me to get to George. George was the target. I think George was the target all along."
https:// www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/trump-campaign-vet-informant-used-me-to-get-to-papadopoulos