“I think they were spying on rival presidential campaigns [and] on the Israelis,” said George Papadopoulos, author of Deep State Target: How I Got Caught in the Crosshairs of the Plot to Bring Down President Trump and Republican candidate for California’s 25th Congressional District, of the Obama administration’s FBI surveillance of himself and others linked to President Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign. He offered his remarks in a Monday interview on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight with hosts Rebecca Mansour and Joel Pollak.

“Both Attorney General Barr and John Durham took the extraordinary step today to make two separate comments that unequivocally refute the findings of the IG report regarding the pretext and the basis — the legal basis — for opening Crossfire Hurricane,” Papadopoulos remarked.

He then noted U.S. Attorney General John Durham’s disagreement with some of Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s conclusions regarding the Obama administration’s investigation of Trump’s presidential campaign.

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Papadopoulos noted Horowitz’s limited investigative authorities relative to Barr, “What Barr and Durham are actually looking into today, and why, I believe, they refuted the IG’s findings is because of the following reasons. The IG did not have the ability to impanel a grand jury, issue subpoenas, or prosecute anybody, while William Barr and John Durham are able to, and they’re looking into Australia’s role, Ukraine’s role, Italy’s role, and the U.K.’s role in how this investigation known as the Mueller witch hunt actually started. … There’s a lot more to the story than has been publicly released.”

Papadopoulos said he was being surveilled by the Obama administration’s FBI while he still worked for Ben Carson’s presidential campaign in early 2015, which was before he joined Trump’s presidential campaign.

“There were informants, or spies, looking into me from the FBI before I even joined the Donald Trump campaign,” Papadopoulos stated. “Now, why is this very bizarre? I’ve never traveled to Russia. I’ve never met a Russian official in my life. My entire career was spent at a neo-conservative think tank in Washington, D.C., called the Hudson Institute, who many of your listeners have probably heard of. The last thing somebody like myself, who’s working at a neo-conservative think tank, along with people like Doug Feith and Scooter Libby are doing is promoting a Russia-first interest.”

Papadopoulos added, “I initially started working on Ben Carson’s campaign, so if I was being probed by the FBI because I was working on a rival presidential campaign to [Hillary Clinton], meaning Ben Carson, before I joined Donald Trump, that’s actually very disturbing.”

“I have zero Russia contacts, so of course this whole fake narrative around me is absurd,” continued Papadopoulos, “What I did have a lot of contacts in is Israel. Now, in the IG report, it shows that some of these informants were wiretapping me or listening in on my conversations about my ties to Israel and the energy business there that I used to consult on. So what I think was going on is two things. They were spying on rival presidential campaigns, meaning Ben Carson’s, and they were probably spying on the Israelis, because that’s actually what was written in the IG report, because it’s impossible for them to have been looking into me for Russia contacts when I’ve never ever met a Russian official in my life.”

Papadopoulos continued, “It’s very important to follow what Durham’s been doing abroad. … He’s been travelling a lot abroad, and he’s trying to understand how foreign governments were basically weaponized by the Obama administration to get information on myself, probably Carter Page Michael Flynn, and it looks like Paul Manafort, as well, who was under investigation.”

Papadopoulos reflected on the origins of the Obama administration’s surveillance of him and others linked to Trump’s 2015 presidential campaign.

“Mike Flynn had Stefan Halper spying on him as early as 2015, and then Stefan Halper started spying on me in the summer of 2016, along with Carter Page and Sam Clovis,” Papadopoulos said. “So, I think they were probably looking into Flynn in 2015 for whatever unjustified reason they were looking into him with fake information, and then that continued with me and then the same sort of operatives were used to get me in London where I was based out of for the first Donald Trump campaign.”

Papadopoulos went on, “Michael Flynn had Stefan Halper targeting him in 2015 in London, okay? Joseph Mifsud, the same spy [or] operative — whatever you want to call him, who is now being investigated by John Durham and William Barr — was after Flynn at that RT dinner that he was at at Moscow, that infamous dinner that Mike Flynn went to that where he was pictured with Putin. Joseph Mifsud was also there. This all happened in 2015. Then conveniently, a couple months later, when I join the campaign after I leave the Carson campaign in March, the same exact guys — Joseph Mifsud and Stefan Halper — are out to target me and others on the campaign. So unless these guys were freelancing and they weren’t part of an actual investigation but they were just freelance spying on Michael Flynn, I think it’s absurd to think that the investigation began in July of 2016.”

Papadopoulos concluded, “Not only that … just today, the attorney general and John Durham himself state that they refute the conclusion made by the IG regarding the origins of the investigation, so clearly there was a lot more going on before the summer of 2016, and unfortunately, the IG did not have the power … to subpoena witnesses, have conversations with foreign governments who were involved with this. … It’s Durham’s responsibility, now, to take it to the next level, and his investigation is now a criminal probe.”



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Follow Robert Kraychik on Twitter @rkraychik.