Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said Thursday he did not know the name of the FBI informant connected to the Trump campaign investigation and wasn’t aware of George Papadopoulos during his time as head of the intelligence agency.
He told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt he did not know Cambridge University professor Stefan Halper, who assisted the FBI in investigating Russia’s attempt to interfere with the 2016 presidential election by reaching out to Trump campaign officials, according to The Washington Post.
“I didn’t know anything about that until it came out in the media,” Mr. Clapper told Mr. Hewitt.
“None of these names, actually, when we left the scene in January of ’17, I never heard of George Papadopoulos. Carter Page, I may have known about mainly through media, but, and certainly the identity of the informant, I didn’t know,” he added.
Mr. Papadopoulos, who was a foreign policy adviser working with the Trump campaign, was charged with lying to the FBI about contacts with the Russian government in 2016.
President Trump has alleged the FBI had a spy within his campaign, although, there is no evidence Mr. Halper, as an informant, worked within the president’s campaign.
• Alex Swoyer can be reached at aswoyer@washingtontimes.com.
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