Investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald on the influence the FBI has on the media, a spy in the Trump campaign and why intel agencies say it is dangerous to talk about these people as it would "jeopardize" their life but then tell us there is nothing going on.



Greenwald said Stefan Halper, reportedly an informant for the FBI within Donald Trump's presidential campaign, is a good example of this because he was already well-known as an intel asset. Greenwald said we know now intel agencies were "painting a fairy tale" since we know who the informant is and he's unhurt.



"We all now know who the informant is and we know that that was just a fairy tale, that he's not some covert undercover agent, but somebody who is a well-known CIA operative whose name has been repeatedly published in newspapers as a CIA operative and as a Republican operative for decades, and so the whole claim that the media was circulating on behalf of the FBI that this was some sensitive covert asset turned out to be a lie and The New York Times, The Washington Post knew that, which is why they did everything but name him by publishing all of the details to let us know who it is," Greenwald told Tucker Carlson on Monday night.











"You have people like Mark Warner and inside of the FBI and the Justice Department who don't want us to know the name of the informant, not because they're worried about national security, but because they are worried about themselves," Greenwald said.





TUCKER CARLSON: What do you think of the coverage, which you've been following closely, of this alleged mole in the campaign?



GLENN GREENWALD, THE INTERCEPT: It's incredibly bizarre, Tucker, because for the last two weeks all we heard from the FBI and of course the media reported uncritically that it was extremely dangerous to try and expose or determine the identity of this informant because to do so would be to jeopardize his life, the life of other people, national security, all the things they said they always want to hide from the public what it is that they do. But now that The New York Times and The Washington Post published huge amount of details about this informant making it incredibly easy to know that it was Stefan Halper because The Daily Caller two days earlier had reported all the same details and named him.



We all now know who the informant is and we know that that was just a fairy tale, that he's not some covert undercover agent, but somebody who is a well-known CIA operative whose name has been repeatedly published in newspapers as a CIA operative and as a Republican operative for decades, and so the whole claim that the media was circulating on behalf of the FBI that this was some sensitive covert asset turned out to be a lie and The New York Times, The Washington Post knew that, which is why they did everything but name him by publishing all of the details to let us know who it is.



CARLSON: But it wasn't just the media. I mean, you saw [Democratic Senator] Mark Warner of Virginia, who is on the Senate Intel Committee, who is seen as a pretty sober person, basically threaten his colleagues with criminal prosecution if they in any way divulge the identity. What would be the justification for that?



GREENWALD: This is what the intelligence community does, Tucker, and I've been trying to essentially make this point for 18 months now as we've been told we are required patriotically to accept whatever it is that they say. I've spent 3 years reporting on the NSA.



They constantly said that it would be a crime if we divulge this information, that it would endanger people. As we reported on it nobody was ever hurt. They there were trying to cover themselves and their own wrongdoing and not the national security of the country and that's the same here. You have people like Mark Warner and inside of the FBI and the Justice Department who don't want us to know the name of the informant, not because they're worried about national security, but because they are worried about themselves, and that's why they are using the language they always use. You're going to be engaged in espionage, you're going to be jeopardizing lives. This is what they always say and the reason why I think the media deserves criticism is because the media knows better than anybody that when they say that they are in the vast majority of cases lying in trying to cover for themselves.