Former Trump campaign aide and Republican consultant Michael Caputo has provided more details about what he believes was another attempt to infiltrate the Trump campaign during the 2016 U.S. election – long before FBI informant Stephan Halper infiltrated the Trump campaign, targeting several aides. Speaking on Tuesday with Fox News and One America News Network (OANN), Caputo said he refused an offer from a former NSA contractor who said he had Hillary Clinton’s emails.
Highlights:
- The informant, allegedly a former NSA contractor, approached Caputo through a friend and intermediary telling them he had a cache of Hillary Clinton’s emails which he wanted to pass along to the Trump campaign.
“I was approached by an intermediary who had been talking to a former government official who told him that they had Hillary Clinton related emails at the – at that government organization, and that they wanted to get them to the Trump campaign.”
- While unwilling to go into further detail on Fox, OANN ‘s Jack Posobiec reports that Caputo confirmed the second informant claimed to be from the NSA – which Posobiec and several others noted does not typically run these types of operations.
SCOOP: Fmr Trump Advisor Michael Caputo confirms to @OANN that the second informant who reached out to him and offered Hillary’s missing emails claimed to be from the NSA
— Jack Posobiec🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) May 22, 2018
Key read: Claimed to be NSA. Typically NSA does not run informants, FBI/CIA does
— Jack Posobiec🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) May 22, 2018
- The intermediary, identified by the Daily Wire as Kirk Bell, was approached at a party by the government contractor. The Daily Wire says that Caputo characterized this as a possible misunderstanding, however Caputo later told OANN‘s Jack Posobiec that his words were being taken out of context “to push an agenda.”
Michael Caputo responds to @OANN on recent article about the 2nd informant. “This is pure BS. People are taking my words out of context to push an agenda”
— Jack Posobiec🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) May 23, 2018
- Caputo and his friend assumed the informant was referring to Hillary Clinton’s 30,000 lost emails, which were in the headlines at the time. Recall that Russia and the alleged DNC server hack weren’t part of the story yet.
“We believed that to mean at the time if you remember, early May, that Hillary Clinton had revealed that she had deleted 30,000 emails and we believed that meant that they had those 30,000 emails.”
- Caputo felt uneasy about the contact and declined the offer, telling the informant to instead go through proper whistleblower channels.
“By the time the 16th of may came around, I came to the conclusion that I did not want to take possession of these emails. I thought they might be classified documents, and I urged through the intermediary, that the people at the government organization do it through a proper whistleblower process.”
- Caputo claims the former NSA contractor reached out to in the first week of May, 2016 – two months before the FBI says they launched their investigation into Russian meddling
- Shockingly, Caputo says he told special counsel Robert Mueller and Congressional investigators about the contact, and nobody followed up whatsoever.
Caputo: I gave this information to the Senate Intelligence Committee two weeks ago. And I gave this information to the Mueller team, and they never reached out to the intermediary to check on it.
Neil Cavuto: Wait a minute, so you raised this issue with Mueller’s team when they were questioning you, and they did nothing?
Caputo: They weren’t even interested. They didn’t even seem to be taking notes.
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