Spygate (conspiracy theory)

Spygate is a conspiracy theory[1][2][3][4] developed and popularized by the United States president Donald Trump. With no actual supporting evidence produced, the May 2018 allegations have been widely described as blatantly false.[1][5][6][7]

On May 22 - May 23, 2018, Trump announced and elaborated, without providing evidence, on the existence of this conspiracy via his Twitter account, stating his belief that the previous administration under Barack Obama paid to plant a spy inside Trump's 2016 presidential campaign to assist his rival, Hillary Clinton, win the 2016 US presidential election.[6][8] An FBI informant had approached separately three Trump campaign advisers in 2016 in a covert effort to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, but as of June 7, 2018, no evidence has appeared indicating that this individual attempted to join Trump's campaign.[9]

Democratic (Adam Schiff) and Republican (Paul Ryan, Trey Gowdy, Tom Rooney, Richard Burr, Jeff Flake and Marco Rubio) Congressmen have dismissed Trump's May 2018 allegations as lacking evidence, and maintained that the FBI did not do anything improper.

In June 2018, Trump again alleged, without providing any evidence, that there was a counter-intelligence operation into the Trump campaign starting from December 2015.[10]

Background

Trump has been involved in the promotion of a number of conspiracy theories which have lacked meaningful substance. These have included promoting Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories from 2011, claiming that Ted Cruz's father was involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 2016, and claiming that he would have won the popular vote in the 2016 election (in addition to his electoral college win) if there had not been "millions" of illegal voters in that election cycle.[11][12] Trump also made his Trump Tower wiretapping allegations in 2017, for which the Department of Justice has said evidence has yet to be provided. In January 2018, Trump claimed that texts between FBI employees Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were tantamount to "treason", but the Wall Street Journal reviewed them and concluded that the texts "show no evidence of a conspiracy against" Trump.[13][14] Glenn Kessler, Salvador Rizzo and Meg Kelly, writing for The Washington Post, found that Trump has made over 3,000 false or misleading claims (including repeats) in the first 466 days of his presidency.[15][16]

According to NBC News, around July to August 2016, after Donald Trump had become the Republican nominee for president during the 2016 presidential election, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) "briefed and warned" Trump that foreign adversaries, which included Russia, would probably attempt to spy on and infiltrate his campaign. Trump was told to alert the FBI of any suspicious activity. White House spokesman Raj Shah acknowledged that "the Republican and Democrat nominee for president received a standardized briefing on counterintelligence" and said that NBC News learned "about the contents of this classified conversation due to an inappropriate leak".[17]

On May 16, 2018, The New York Times reported the existence of a 2016 FBI investigation called Crossfire Hurricane, which investigated whether individuals within the Trump campaign had links to Russian efforts to undermine the presidential election. Four individuals, Michael T. Flynn, Paul Manafort, Carter Page and George Papadopoulos, were initially investigated due to obvious or suspected Russian ties.[18] During the investigation, the FBI "obtained phone records and other documents using national security letters, a secret type of subpoena". The New York Times also reported that FBI agents (believing that Trump would lose the election and cognizant of Trump's claims that the election was rigged against him) took extreme care and caution to keep the investigation secret as they feared that Trump would blame his defeat on the revelation of the investigation.[18]

On May 17, 2018, Trump quoted National Review columnist Andrew C. McCarthy, who had said: "There's probably no doubt that [the FBI] had at least one confidential informant in the [Trump] campaign". From that quote, Trump described that "word seems to be coming out that the Obama FBI SPIED ON THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN ... If so, this is bigger than Watergate!"[19]

Although an FBI informant, Stefan Halper, spoke separately to three Trump campaign advisers (Carter Page, Sam Clovis and George Papadopoulos) in 2016 in an effort to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, there is no evidence that Halper actually tried to join Trump's campaign. Page said that he "had extensive discussions" with Halper on "a bunch of different foreign-policy-related topics". Clovis's attorney said that Clovis and Halper had discussed China during their sole meeting. Papadopoulos was paid $3,000 by Halper for a research paper on the oil fields of Turkey, Israel and Cyprus.[9]

Trump and his allies' allegations

May 2018

On May 22, 2018, Trump expanded on McCarthy's theory, alleging that the Barack Obama administration had paid to plant a spy inside the 2016 Trump presidential campaign "very early on" to assist Trump's rival, Hillary Clinton, win the 2016 US presidential election.[6][8] From May 23, 2018, Trump began to describe his allegations as Spygate.[1][20][5] The Associated Press reported that Trump privately said that he wanted "to brand" the informant as a "spy" as using a more nefarious term would supposedly resonate more with the public.[21]

Despite claiming that Spygate "could be one of the biggest political scandals in history",[22] Trump has not offered any evidence when asked for it, instead saying, "All you have to do is look at the basics and you'll see it."[23]

In the May 22 tweets, Trump wrote that Halper, the FBI informant, was paid a "massive amount of money", and concluded that he thus must be a spy implanted for "political purposes". However, the $1 million in contracts were signed between Halper (a professor in international security) and the United States Department of Defense's Office of Net Assessment between 2012 to 2016, with 40% of the money awarded before Trump announced his candidacy in 2015. It is unknown if the FBI paid Halper at all.[24][25]

In the May 23 tweets, Trump published a false quote attributed to former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper that "Trump should be happy that the FBI was SPYING on his campaign". Instead, when asked "was the FBI spying on Trump’s campaign", Clapper had said, "No, they were not." What Clapper really said Trump should have been happy about was that the FBI was investigating “what the Russians were doing” and "were the Russians infiltrating" his campaign and trying to influence the election.[26]

On May 26, 2018, Trump questioned "why didn’t the crooked highest levels of the FBI or “Justice” contact me to tell me of the phony Russia problem?" However, according to NBC News, Trump was warned by the FBI around July to August 2016 about possible Russian espionage and infiltration into his campaign.[27]

On May 25, The Washington Post wrote that several conservative sources have sided with Trump to embrace and promote Spygate, including the Fox & Friends talk show and political commentators Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity for Fox News, the website Breitbart, and also radio show host Rush Limbaugh. Meanwhile, Infowars host Alex Jones took credit for coining the "Spygate" term.[28]

Asked on whether the promotion of the Spygate theory is meant to discredit the special counsel investigation, Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani said on May 27 that the investigators "are giving us the material to do it. Of course, we have to do it in defending the president ... it is for public opinion" on whether to "impeach or not impeach" Trump.[29]

June 2018

On June 5, Trump declared that "SPYGATE is in full force!", claiming without providing any evidence that "Strzok-Page, the incompetent & corrupt FBI lovers, have texts referring to a counter-intelligence operation into the Trump Campaign dating way back to December, 2015."[30] However, the December 2015 texts do not make any reference to the Trump campaign or Russia.[31]

This particular conspiracy theory promoted by Trump was traced by media outlets to originate from a Twitter user called @Nick_Falco, who on June 4 posted about the words "oconus lures" in December 2015 texts between FBI employees Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. While "oconus" refers to "outside the continental United States", Falco inferred that "lures" refer to spies.[30][32] However, according to the United States Department of Justice, "lures" refer to "subterfuge to entice a criminal defendant to leave a foreign country so that he or she can be arrested".[33] Falco questioned if "the FBI wanted to run a baited Sting Op using foreign agents against Trump", despite none of the texts mentioning the Trump campaign or Russia.[31] Also on June 4, Falco's tweet spread to the r/conspiracy forum on Reddit, and also The Gateway Pundit, a far-right, pro-Trump website which has published multiple false conspiracy theories.[30][32] The Gateway Pundit wrote an article entitled: "Breaking: Senate releases unredacted texts showing FBI initiated MULTIPLE SPIES in Trump campaign in December 2015".[34] However, the texts referenced by Falco were publicly released by a Senate committee months earlier in February 2018.[32][31] On June 5, Lou Dobbs of Fox Business said that "the FBI may have initiated a number of spies into the Trump campaign as early as December of 2015." Dobbs' interviewee on the show, Chris Farrell, agreed that the existence of an "intelligence operation directed against then-candidate Trump" was "indisputable". Trump's June 5 tweet on Spygate came less than an hour after Dobbs' interview, with Trump also tweeting praise of Dobbs for the "great interview".[31][35]

After Trump made his June 5 tweet, Fox News described the news as "New Strzok-Page texts released", with Fox News television host Laura Ingraham saying: "It certainly appears they were looking to put more lures into the campaign in 2015." Republican Representative Ron DeSantis, a panelist on Ingraham's show, agreed that it was "clear" that the FBI investigation into Trump started earlier than July 2016.[31][34]

Reactions and criticism

May 2018 allegations

Trey Gowdy, the Republican chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said after a classified meeting with Department of Justice officials that "the FBI is doing what [Trump] told them to do ... I am even more convinced that the FBI did exactly what my fellow citizens would want them to do when they got the information they got, and that it has nothing to do with Donald Trump".[36] Fellow Republicans, Paul Ryan, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, and Richard Burr, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, have supported Gowdy's assessment of the situation.[37]

Republican Representative Tom Rooney, who is on the House Intelligence Committee, chided Trump for creating "this thing to tweet about knowing that it’s not true ... Maybe it’s just to create more chaos".[38] Republican senator Jeff Flake has said that the "so-called Spygate" is a "diversion tactic, obviously",[39] while Republican senator Marco Rubio said that "it appears that there was an investigation not of the campaign but of certain individuals who have a history that we should be suspicious of that predate the presidential campaign of 2015, 2016".[40]

Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, has said that Spygate is "lie-gate", a "piece of propaganda the president wants to put out and repeat". He accused President Trump of repeatedly spreading baseless lies by quoting that "people are saying ..." or "we’ve been told ..."[39][41] Michael Hayden, a retired general, former Director of the National Security Agency and former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, said that Trump, through Spygate, was "simply trying to delegitimize the Mueller investigation, the FBI, the Department of Justice, and he’s willing to throw almost anything against the wall".[40]

Journalist Shepard Smith has said that "Fox News can confirm that Spygate is not" true; "Fox News knows of no evidence to support the president's claim. Lawmakers from both parties say using an informant to investigate is not spying. It’s part of the normal investigative process."[42] Legal analyst Andrew Napolitano concurred in telling Fox News that the FBI's usage of an informant was being done "all the time" and thus "stunningly unremarkable".[43]

Jon Meacham, a presidential historian, has said, in regards to Spygate, "The effect on the life of the nation of a president inventing conspiracy theories in order to distract attention from legitimate investigations or other things he dislikes is corrosive".[1]

Aaron Blake, writing for The Washington Post, wrote that the "central problem" of the Spygate conspiracy theory is the "fact that these people who supposedly would do anything to stop Trump ... didn't." In the period before the election, the FBI "didn't use the information it had collected to actually prevent Trump from becoming president", as it did not publicly reveal it was already investigating links between George Papadopoulos, Carter Page, Paul Manafort and Russia. Rather, the reports before the election were that the FBI saw no clear link between Russia and the Trump campaign, instead believing that Russia was trying to disrupt the election without purposely trying to elect Trump.[12]

Steven Poole, writing for The Guardian, wrote that the real scandal was Trump even using the "-gate" suffix for the issue, as the Spygate allegations are about "purely imaginary things".[44]

From May 31 to June 5, 2018, Quinnipiac University conducted a national poll of 1,223 voting Americans regarding the Spygate allegations. With the margin for error being 3.4%, a majority of 56% believe that the FBI's usage of a confidential informant was "routine procedure", while 33% agree with Trump that the FBI was spying on the Trump campaign. The only group of voters with a majority believing Trump are Republicans at 66%.[45][46]

June 2018 allegations

The New York magazine addressed the June 2018 allegations by stating: "It’s not surprising or scandalous that FBI agents would be using espionage tradecraft. Gateway Pundit seems to have invented the crucial factual element of the conspiracy out of thin air" while "Trump is citing right-wing conspiracy theorists who operate at a full level further removed from reality than the right-wing conspiracy theorists he customarily cites."[30]

Zack Beauchamp of Vox wrote about the situation which was "entirely unfounded in the actual evidence" is that "Fox picks up on some random internet rumor, the president picks it up from Fox, and then Fox and other right-wing outlets leap to defend what the president tweeted, which only reinforces Trump’s sense that he’s right."[34]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Davis, Julie; Haberman, Maggie. "With 'Spygate,' Trump Shows How He Uses Conspiracy Theories to Erode Trust". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 28 May 2018. Retrieved 29 May 2018.
  2. ↑ Aaronson, Trevor. "The FBI's use of informants is full of problems, but what happened in "Spygate" isn't one of them". The Intercept. Archived from the original on 31 May 2018. Retrieved 2 June 2018.
  3. ↑ Sollenberger, Roger. "The Short, Sad Life of SPYGATE!: Trump's Latest Conspiracy Theory Got Debunked By Evidence in A Matter of Hours". Paste. Archived from the original on 31 May 2018. Retrieved 2 June 2018.
  4. ↑ Republicans distance themselves from Trump’s ‘Spygate’ conspiracy theory. Los Angeles Times, 30 May 2018
  5. 1 2 Bump, Philip. "There is no evidence for 'Spygate' — but there is a reason Trump invented it". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 3 June 2018. Retrieved 1 June 2018.
  6. 1 2 3 Beauchamp, Zack. ""Spygate," the false allegation that the FBI had a spy in the Trump campaign, explained". Vox. Archived from the original on 28 May 2018. Retrieved 2 June 2018.
  7. ↑ Darcy, James. "'Spygate' is just latest Trump lie: Darcy cartoon". cleveland.com. Archived from the original on 31 May 2018. Retrieved 2 June 2018.
  8. 1 2 Tatum, Sophie. "Carter Page: I 'never found anything unusual' in conversations with FBI source". CNN. Archived from the original on 23 May 2018. Retrieved 2 June 2018.
  9. 1 2 Costa, Robert; Leonnig, Carol; Hamburger, Tom; Barrett, Devlin. "Secret FBI source for Russia investigation met with three Trump advisers during campaign". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 29 May 2018. Retrieved 29 May 2018.
  10. ↑ Chait, Jonathan (5 June 2018). "Trump's Latest FBI Conspiracy Theory Is His Craziest Yet". New York Magazine. Retrieved 27 July 2018.
  11. ↑ Evans, Greg. "8 of the biggest conspiracy theories that Trump has shared". The Independent. Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  12. 1 2 Blake, Aaron. "The No. 1 reason Trump's 'spygate' conspiracy theory doesn't make sense". The Washington Post. Retrieved 3 June 2018.
  13. ↑ Boot, Max. "Trump just keeps on lying — because it works". The Washington Post. Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  14. ↑ Wilber, Del Quentin. "Inside the FBI Life of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, as Told in Their Text Messages". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  15. ↑ Kessler, Glenn; Rizzo, Salvador; Kelly, Meg. "President Trump has made 3,001 false or misleading claims so far". The Washington Post. Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  16. ↑ Roberts, Steve; Roberts, Cokie. "GOP's silence is the real scandal". The Albany Herald. Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  17. ↑ Dilanian, Ken; Ainsley, Julia; Lee, Carol. "FBI warned Trump in 2016 Russians would try to infiltrate his campaign". NBC News. Archived from the original on 23 April 2018. Retrieved 2 June 2018.
  18. 1 2 Apuzzo, Matt; Goldman, Adam; Fandos, Nicholas. "Code Name Crossfire Hurricane: The Secret Origins of the Trump Investigation". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 1 June 2018. Retrieved 2 June 2018.
  19. ↑ Manchester, Julia. "Trump: Report that Obama FBI spied on campaign could be 'bigger than Watergate'". The Hill. Archived from the original on 19 May 2018. Retrieved 2 June 2018.
  20. ↑ DeCosta-Klipa, Nik. "This Donald Trump tweet might have caused some confusion for Patriots fans". Boston.com. Archived from the original on 24 May 2018. Retrieved 1 June 2018.
  21. ↑ Jalonick, Mary; Lemire, Jonathan. "Seething over Russia probe, Trump tears into 'spygate'". Associated Press. Archived from the original on 3 June 2018. Retrieved 2 June 2018.
  22. ↑ "Trump: 'SPYGATE' a scandal 'the likes of which this country may never have seen before'". CNBC. Archived from the original on 23 May 2018. Retrieved 2 June 2018.
  23. ↑ Fishel, Justin; Karson, Kendall; Khan, Mariam. "Trump claims 'you'll see it' when asked for proof of alleged 'spying' scandal". ABC News. Archived from the original on 31 May 2018. Retrieved 2 June 2018.
  24. ↑ Greenberg, Jon. "Online story gets details wrong about informant payment in Trump Russia probe". Politifact. Archived from the original on 24 May 2018. Retrieved 2 June 2018.
  25. ↑ Correll, Diana. "Trump questions why FBI informant received payments from government". Washington Examiner. Archived from the original on 27 May 2018. Retrieved 2 June 2018.
  26. ↑ Kiely, Eugene. "Trump Misquotes Clapper on FBI 'Spy'". FactCheck.org. Archived from the original on 31 May 2018. Retrieved 2 June 2018.
  27. ↑ Greenwood, Max. "Trump: Why didn't FBI tell me about 'phony Russia problem' during campaign". The Hill. Archived from the original on 28 May 2018. Retrieved 2 June 2018.
  28. ↑ Farhi, Paul. "'Spygate'? The mainstream news media has a few problems with that phrase". The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 June 2018.
  29. ↑ Bach, Natasha (May 28, 2018). "'It Is for Public Opinion.' Rudy Giuliani May Have Admitted That Trump's 'Spygate' Is a PR Ploy". Fortune. Archived from the original on May 28, 2018. Retrieved May 28, 2018.
  30. 1 2 3 4 Chait, Jonathan. "Trump's Latest FBI Conspiracy Theory Is His Craziest Yet". New York Magazine. Retrieved June 7, 2018.
  31. 1 2 3 4 5 Herb, Jeremy; Raju, Manu. "From Reddit to Trump: How the President latched onto a conspiracy theory". CNN. Retrieved June 7, 2018.
  32. 1 2 3 Kight, Stef. "Go deeper: Digging into Trump's latest "Spygate" tweet". Axios.com. Retrieved June 7, 2018.
  33. ↑ "9-15.630 - Lures". United States Department of Justice. Retrieved June 7, 2018.
  34. 1 2 3 Beauchamp, Zack. "Trump, Fox News, and Twitter have created a dangerous conspiracy theory loop". Vox. Retrieved June 7, 2018.
  35. ↑ Hill, James; Bruggeman, Lucien. "'Oconus lures': Evolution of a conspiracy theory, from Reddit to the White House". ABC News. Retrieved 8 June 2018.
  36. ↑ MacCallum, Martha. "Gowdy on Trump's Spy Claims: I'm 'Convinced' FBI Did What Americans Would Want Them to Do". Fox News. Archived from the original on 1 June 2018. Retrieved 1 June 2018.
  37. ↑ Demirjian, Karoun; DeBonis, Mike. "Paul Ryan splits with Trump, says 'no evidence' FBI spied on president's campaign". The Washington Post. Retrieved June 7, 2018.
  38. ↑ Cheney, Kyle; Bade, Rachael. "GOP congressman blasts Trump's spy conspiracy". Politico. Retrieved 8 June 2018.
  39. 1 2 "Trump's 'Spygate' is a 'diversion tactic': Senator Flake". Reuters. Archived from the original on 28 May 2018. Retrieved 1 June 2018.
  40. 1 2 Boedeker, Hal. "Rubio: FBI didn't investigate Trump campaign". Orlando Sentinel. Archived from the original on 27 May 2018. Retrieved 2 June 2018.
  41. ↑ Samuels, Brett. "Top Intel Dem: This isn't 'spygate,' it's 'liegate'". The Hill. Retrieved 8 June 2018.
  42. ↑ Bort, Ryan. "Even Conservatives Are Realizing Trump's 'Spygate' Conspiracy Is a Hoax". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 31 May 2018. Retrieved 1 June 2018.
  43. ↑ "Judge Nap: Giuliani Shouldn't Make 'Outlandish & Outrageous' Spy Allegations Without Evidence". Fox News. Archived from the original on 3 June 2018. Retrieved 1 June 2018.
  44. ↑ Poole, Steven. "Spygate: why Donald Trump's use of 'gate' is a scandal". The Guardian. Retrieved 4 June 2018.
  45. ↑ Wise, Justin. "Poll: Majority says Trump's 'spygate' claims not accurate". The Hill. Retrieved 14 June 2018.
  46. ↑ "June 8, 2018 - U.S. Voters Oppose Steel Tariff, Back China Levy, Quinnipiac University National Poll Finds; FBI Did Not Spy On Trump Campaign, Voters Say". Quinnipiac University. Retrieved 14 June 2018.
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