There’s something I’ve been wondering about the DOJ IG Report into Carter Page.
The report revealed details (though not all details) about Stefan Halper’s interactions with George Papadopoulos, Carter Page, and Sam Clovis, which had been previously reported. It debunked Papadopoulos’ claims that some other people — some US defense personnel in the UK, Alexander Downer, Joseph Mifsud, and Israelis offering cash — were FBI informants attempting to entrap him.
But it also revealed that another informant, described as Source 3 in the report, had multiple meetings with Papadopoulos. The person is described as someone with access to Papadopoulos that they recruited — in accelerated fashion — for this purpose.
Case Agent 3 and an Intelligence Analyst identified Source 3 as an individual with a connection to Papadopoulos who may be willing to act as a CHS, based on statements Source 3 had made to the FBI several years prior, during an interview in an unrelated investigation. Source 3 had never previously worked for the FBI as a CHS, and the Delta records for Source 3 state that the opening of this CHS “was accelerated due to operational necessity.”
Case Agent 3 said that he considered Source 3 to be a reliable CHS because Source 3 was always available when the FBI needed Source 3, provided good descriptions of the conversations with Papadopoulos, and the summaries that Source 3 provided to the FBI were corroborated by the consensual monitoring. The FBI performed a human source validation review on Source 3 in 2017, and recommended Source 3 for continued operation.
Papadopoulos and Source 3 met multiple times between October 2016 and June 2017, all of which occurred after the FBI understood that Papadopoulos had ceased working on the Trump campaign. 471 All but one of their meetings were consensually monitored by the FBI; however, not all of them were transcribed by the FBI. Instead, Case Agent 3 said that he and the Intelligence Analyst would review the recordings to find portions that were of investigative interest, and those portions were written up or reviewed.
Papadopoulos clearly trusted this person more than Halper. He told Source 3 that he told Halper the story he had about ties to WIkiLeaks because he expected Halper would, “tell the CIA or something if I’d have told him something else. I assume that’s why he was asking.” He told Source 3 about Sergei Millian (whose ties to Papadopoulos the FBI had already identified). He told Source 3 a version of the Joseph Mifsud story and admitted he was going to try to monetize that relationship.
Source 3 asked Papadopoulos if he had ever met Putin, Papadopoulos said that he was invited “to go and thank God I didn’t go though.” Papadopoulos said that it was a “weird story” from when he “was working at … this law firm in London” that involved a guy who was “well connected to the Russian government.” Papadopoulos also said that he was introduced to “Putin’s niece” and the Russian Ambassador in London. 472 Papadopoulos did not elaborate on the story, but he added that he needed to figure out
how I’m going monetize it, but I have to be an idiot not to monetize it, get it? Even if [Trump] loses. If anything, I feel like if he loses probably could be better for my personal business because if he wins I’m going to be in some bureaucracy I can’t do jack … , you know?
For years, Papadopoulos has been trying to dismiss his guilty plea by saying he was set up by a network of nefarious informants.
And yet he hasn’t revealed who Source 3 — someone he obviously met on multiple occasions — is.
The claims of Marcus DiPaola — someone who claimed to be an informant for the FBI until he recently got exposed by Fox News, before leaking a damning internal Fox report about its own susceptibility to propaganda — got me thinking about this question again. While my own interactions with the FBI make me very skeptical that FBI would work with someone acting as a journalist as an informant, which is what he claims happened. And the timing — DiPaola claims he approached the FBI in January 2016, not earlier as the IG Report describes Source 3 did — doesn’t line up.
So I don’t think DiPaola is Source 3.
But it made me all the more cognizant that Papadopoulos, who never met a real or suspected informant he didn’t burn, has been silent about this person.
Which may hint that Papadopoulos suspects Source 3 could tell a whole lot of truths if he or she were identified that would blow his current schtick.
Update: I just realized that the date of a Fox Report that seems to have come from DiPaola is December 9, the date of the IG Report. So that might support the possibility that he was Source 3.