President Trump on Friday called the FBI’s use of a blond bombshell to get dirt on his campaign “bigger than WATERGATE” — as Vice President Mike Pence suggested he was also spied on.
In a rare move, Trump praised The New York Times for reporting that a female FBI investigator traveled to London in 2016 to meet with former campaign adviser George Papadopoulos.
During their barroom conversation, the woman — who called herself Azra Turk — tried to find out if Trump’s campaign was colluding with Russia.
Turk returned to the US when her efforts failed to produce results, the Times said.
“Finally, Mainstream Media is getting involved — too ‘hot’ to avoid,” Trump tweeted.
“Pulitzer Prize anyone? The New York Times, on front page (finally), ‘Details effort to spy on Trump Campaign.’ @foxandfriends. This is bigger than WATERGATE, but the reverse!”
In his recent memoir, “Deep State Target,” Papadopoulos described Turk as a “sexy bottle blonde” who “isn’t shy about showing her curves — as if anyone could miss them.”
He also told members of Congress last year that she seemed willing to trade sex for information.
Also Friday, Pence said that “we need to find out” if he was spied on during the transition following Trump’s shock victory over Hillary Clinton.
During an interview with Fox News at the White House, Pence cited “the report a week ago that two discredited FBI agents were actually conversing about sending a counter-intelligence official to one of my first intelligence briefings during the transition.”
In an April 25 letter to Attorney General William Barr, two Republican senators said they “have reviewed certain text messages that may show potential attempts by the FBI to conduct surveillance of President-elect Trump’s transition team.”
“In text messages exchanged between former FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok and former FBI Attorney Lisa Page, the two discussed the possibility of developing ‘potential relationships’ at a November 2016 FBI briefing for presidential transition team staff,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) wrote.
“Specifically, it appears they discussed sending ‘the CI guy’ to assess an unnamed person(s) ‘demeanor’ but were concerned because it might be unusual for him to attend.”
The letter doesn’t allege a specific plan to infiltrate a Pence intelligence briefing, and notes “the precise purpose of any attempts to ‘develop relationships’ with Trump or Pence transition team staff” isn’t clear.
It also doesn’t identify the “CI guy,” but says references to “Bill” and “Evanina” in one text most likely refer to E.W. Priestap, former assistant director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division, and William Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, respectively.
Strzok was removed from a top post on special counsel Robert Mueller’s team and later fired, and Page resigned following the revelation of anti-Trump text messages they exchanged while having an extramarital affair.
When asked if there’s any evidence his transition team was spied on, Pence said, “Well, all I’ve seen is what the texts that came out a week ago have shown. But I have to tell you, it’s very offensive to me.”
“At a time when we were beginning the process of organizing our government, nine days after the election, these two disgraced FBI agents were actually corresponding about sending a counter-intelligence guy, I think that’s what a CI guy is, to my intelligence briefing,” he said.
Pence added, “The American people have the right to know how all this started, and if the law was violated, those people need to be held accountable.”