Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said Rudy Giuliani was “deliberately misinterpreting” his comments about an FBI informant monitoring members of the Trump campaign.
Giuliani, a lawyer for President Trump, has recently cited Clapper as confirming the claim that the FBI was spying on the Trump campaign.
“He is deliberately misinterpreting what I said,” Clapper said Friday on CNN “New Day.” “There is a huge difference between the use of an informant and a spy, a term I’ve never liked any way because it had none of the trappings of clandestine tradecraft, not using a person that was formerly trained as a case officer or using any of the techniques and procedures … that [a so-called spy] would use, so I think it’s a deliberate distortion just to sustain the narrative.”
Giuliani recently said, “I see Clapper saying that there was a spy but he was spying on the Russian end. But spying on the Russian end if they thought there was collusion meant spying on the president’s campaign.”
The two have sparred in recent weeks over the FBI’s use of a confidential informant during President Trump’s campaign. (RELATED: Giuliani: FBI, DOJ Are Being ‘Hypocritical’)
Clapper continued, “Well, I think this sort of characterization is really unfortunate, inappropriate, unfair and in fact dishonest. But this is part of a larger campaign, which Mr. Giuliani fully acknowledged, to undermine the investigation. That’s the whole point here and cast as many aspersions on the investigation and those conducting it as possible.”
NBC News reported that both candidates were briefed after receiving their party’s nominations about potential foreign involvement in their campaigns.
Last Sunday, Giuliani called Clapper a clown on CNN’s “State of the Union.”