FBI source in Russia probe called Israelis ‘f***ing spies’ who should be killed
DOJ releases transcript of source speaking with George Papadopoulos, who was probed by Mueller over his ties to Israel, which includes references to the Mossad, ‘fake’ Russian Jews
Newly released transcripts from the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign’s possible ties to Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 US presidential election included an agency source referring to Israelis as “fucking spies” who should all be executed.
The transcript, which was declassified by the Justice Department and shared with a number of US senators on Tuesday, is from November 26, 2016 conversations during an outing in Illinois between a man identified as a “Confidential Human Source” and former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty in 2017 for making false statements to FBI agents.
Papadopoulos was investigated for his ties to Israel as part of the Mueller probe, which concluded there was not sufficient evidence he was acting as an unregistered agent for the Jewish state.
Papadopoulos is identified in the transcript as “Crossfire Typhoon,” or “CT,” in apparent reference to “Crossfire Hurricance,” the name of the FBI’s probe into whether members of the Trump campaign colluded with Russian officials.
In the transcript, the FBI source repeatedly mentions Israelis and the Mossad, the Israeli spy agency,
At one point during the conversation between the two, which took place more than two weeks after the US election, Papadopoulos said he once dated a woman who worked at the Israeli embassy.
“What the fuck you were dating her for?” the source asked him, to which Papadopoulos replied “she was probably Mossad and that, that’s why she took a [unintelligible].”
Following a number of lines that were redacted, Papadopoulos said the woman was a Russian Jew, to which the source responded, “Russian Jews, those fake Jews.”
Pressed by the source, Papadopoulos later said: “It was four month thing. Well we’re still like friends, I guess but… I-I’m pretty sure that they knew that… what was going on though, you know, and they were just like using her like to bait me.”
Asked why Israel would want to bait him, Papadopoulos said, “Just to get info, man, I don’t know.”
Later on in the transcript, the source refers to a man named Sergey, who he said he believes is a Russian spy.
“No fucking Russians here that aren’t fucking… same with the Israelis they’re all fucking spies. Those fucking cocksuckers. They should execute them all,” he said.
The source also said at different points in the transcript that “Israeli’s [sic] have fucked up French accents” and “that I can smell an Israeli from a mile away, dude.”
Papadopoulos and the source also discussed an “Eli Groaner” who worked at the Israeli embassy in Washington. They appeared to be referring to Eli Groner, who worked at the embassy from 2011 to 2014 and later become a top aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Groner stepped down as director-general of the Prime Minister’s Office in 2018.
The source referred to “Groaner” as a “malaka,” a Greek slang term meaning “wanker,” and said he was emailing Papadopoulos, which the latter appeared to confirm.
Elsewhere in the transcript, the unidentified source said Papadopoulos was “probably working out a deal” so he would “be fucking extradited to Israel.”
It was not clear from the transcript if any of these remarks were made in jest.
Also this week, the Justice Department released an August 2017 letter from then Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to special counsel Robert Mueller laying out the scope of the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election, which confirmed Papadopoulos was investigated for any “crime or crimes by acting as an unregistered agent of the government of Israel.”
“I was consulting on multi-billion dollar pipeline deals between Israel-Egypt-Greece-Cyprus and clearly was illegally spied on,” Papadopoulos wrote on Twitter in response, adding that a number of figures linked to the Trump campaign-Russia investigations “ALL probed me on ties to Israel. This is damning.”
He also repeated a claim he made to the Times of Israel before beginning his 12-day prison sentence in 2018 that the FBI tried to frame him as part of a sting operation during a 2017 trip to Israel.
