On Friday, President Donald Trump lamented reports that federal law enforcement officials may have had a person inside the Trump campaign acting as a source that led to them opening the investigation into what role the campaign played in Russian interference with the 2016 election.
Reports are there was indeed at least one FBI representative implanted, for political purposes, into my campaign for president. It took place very early on, and long before the phony Russia Hoax became a “hot” Fake News story. If true – all time biggest political scandal!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 18, 2018
Trump said that this would be the “all time biggest political scandal” if true. Well, that’s a bit of an overstatement. As far as having an “FBI representative” planted within the campaign “for political purposes,” former federal prosecutor Daniel Goldman said in a tweet that this “simply does not happen,” and the FBI doesn’t work that way.
I would like to see a “report” that an FBI confidential informant was “implanted” “for political purposes.” There is no such report because that is not how the FBI operates. That simply does not happen and this bogus misinformation campaign needs to stop. https://t.co/1Lu4WTHjPF
— Daniel S. Goldman (@danielsgoldman) May 18, 2018
Basically, that means that if the FBI did have an inside person within the Trump campaign, there would be a law enforcement-related reason for it, not some political agenda. This seems obvious, because why would they bother having someone on the inside if they didn’t suspect any wrongdoing?
Now, if the FBI did have an informant in the campaign, that might be a big story, but it wouldn’t be illegal. Law enforcement agencies use confidential informants all the time to gather information. They do this when they suspect that other people are breaking the law and they want to get proof.
If the Trump campaign didn’t do anything wrong, as the president insists, then there’s not much of a reason to be upset that the FBI may have been snooping.
[Image via Chris Kleponis-Pool/Getty Images]
