Thread: James Clapper: FBI's Trump informant was "most benign form of information gathering"

James Clapper: FBI's Trump informant was "most benign form of information gathering"

By Emily Tillett CBS News May 27, 2018, 12:42 PM

Former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper says the use of human sources is "the most benign form of information gathering" amid President Trump's persistent outcry over the FBI's use of an informant during its investigation into connections between Russians and members of the Trump campaign.

"I have an aversion to the use of the word 'spy,'" Clapper said, referring to Mr. Trump's use of the moniker "spygate." "But let's just for the sake of discussion use that term, which conventionally means the use of tradecraft using a formally trained case officer who would mask identity, who would attempt to recruit. So none of the classical attributes of spycraft, if can use that term, were present here. This is the most benign form of information gathering. So to characterize it as a spy or spygate is of course part of the narrative," Clapper told "Face the Nation" on Sunday.

Transcript: Ex-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper on "Face the Nation," May 27, 2018

In recent days Mr. Trump has fired off a number of tweets accusing the FBI of planting and paying a "spy" in his campaign, which he on Wednesday termed "SPYGATE" and later decried as "illegal" and "one of the political scandals in U.S. history."

Since Mr. Trump directed the Department of Justice to investigate whether or not the FBI "infiltrated" his campaign for "political purposes," lawmakers from both parties attended briefings this past week about the FBI's use of informants. Senior intelligence and law enforcement officials, including FBI Director Christopher Wray, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, attended the briefings to provide members of Congress with more information.

Clapper told "Face the Nation" that as DNI during the Obama administration, he would not have known about any FBI informant or their decision to use a human source. Clapper said without knowing exactly what the FBI's concerns were at the time, it's hard to say if Mr. Trump should have been warned about the use of informants.

"Subsequently, certainly, particularly when we became more aware of the Russian cyber intrusions, both campaigns were advised of that," Clapper noted.

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This is the most benign form of information gathering. So to characterize it as a spy or spygate is of course part of the narrative," Clapper told "Face the Nation" on Sunday.

It's not "benign" when the purpose and use of it is to entrap with false information to indict campaign workers with the threat of jail and fines to try to frame a future President of the United States for "crimes" that didn't occur. The "intel" community doesn't exist and isn't funded by US taxpayers to have their candidates, their homes, their families, their friends, their offices and their campaign organizations infiltrated with government spies. This is the epitome of what these same former idiots running our "intel" operations accuse the Russins of doing in their country.

It's outrageous!! Lock 'em all up and throw away the keys. The only known entities to this date after all these investigations to have broken the law, broken the trust of the American People, and by doing so "threatened our democracy" are James Comey, James Clapper, John Brennan, the US DOJ, Obama White House and yessah, Obama himself.

The hatred of this man named Donald J Trump and the criminality that ensued from it demonstrated by these hacks is beyond imagination. These people are child-like, they're little jealous Nellies in grown men's bodies wearing suits carrying home big government paychecks.