--- title: Trump Says FBI Had Spy Embedded On His 2016 Campaign description: President Donald Trump suggested that the F.B.I. under President Barack Obama had embedded an informant within the Trump campaign in 2016. canonical: https://time.com/5280636/trump-informant-fbi-campaign/ author: Nash Jenkins article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-05-17T14:05:52.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T20:18:07.204Z article:section: Politics og:title: Trump Suggests the FBI Had an 'Embedded Informant' in His 2016 Campaign og:description: 'If so, this is bigger than Watergate!' og:url: https://time.com/5280636/trump-informant-fbi-campaign/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd643fd8c187fd73a/6989309c8fd2ee9dd235ba26/trump-fbi-informant.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4500 og:image:height: 2531 og:image:alt: President Trump Hosts Leaders From California To Discuss Sanctuary Cities og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Trump Suggests the FBI Had an 'Embedded Informant' in His 2016 Campaign twitter:description: 'If so, this is bigger than Watergate!' twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd643fd8c187fd73a/6989309c8fd2ee9dd235ba26/trump-fbi-informant.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Trump Suggests the FBI Had an 'Embedded Informant' in His 2016 Campaign > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. by [Nash Jenkins](https://time.com/author/p-nash-jenkins/) ## Nash Jenkins May 17, 2018 2:05 PM UTC  U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with California leaders and public officials who oppose California's sanctuary policies in the Cabinet Room of the White House May 16, 2018 in Washington, D.C. U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with California leaders and public officials who oppose California's sanctuary policies in the Cabinet Room of the White House May 16, 2018 in Washington, D.C. Pool—Getty Images by [Nash Jenkins](https://time.com/author/p-nash-jenkins/) ## Nash Jenkins May 17, 2018 2:05 PM UTC President Donald Trump suggested Thursday that the F.B.I. under President Barack Obama had embedded an informant within the Trump campaign in 2016. The President attributed this claim to Andrew McCarthy, an editor at the conservative _National Review._ In a recent [column](https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/strzok-page-texts-trump-russia-investigation-origins/), McCarthy said that Glenn Simpson, the co-founder of an intelligence firm, Fusion GPS, that compiled research on Trump during the campaign, had testified to the Senate that the F.B.I. had a “human source” within the campaign. (According to McCarthy, Simpson later backpedaled, saying that he had mischaracterized what his source, the former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele who aided Fusion GPS with its research, had told him.) “Wow, word seems to be coming out that the Obama FBI SPIED ON THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN WITH AN EMBEDDED INFORMANT,'” Trump tweeted. “Andrew McCarthy says, ‘There’s probably no doubt that they had at least one confidential informant in the campaign.'” “If so, this is bigger than Watergate!” he concluded. > [](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/997095653875617792) According to Simpson, Steele had met with the F.B.I. in the fall of 2016 to discuss his concerns about Russian interference in the election. The agency told him they were already on it. “Essentially what he told me was they had other intelligence about this matter from an internal Trump campaign source,” Simpson said in his Senate testimony. “My understanding was that they believed Chris at this point – that they believed Chris might be credible because they had other intelligence that indicated the same thing and one of those pieces of intelligence was a human source from inside the Trump organization.” Trump has long been convinced that the Obama White House attempted to somehow stymie his effort to become president in 2016\. Shortly after his inauguration last year, he claimed that his predecessor’s administration had wiretapped Trump Tower during the campaign — a claim [eventually refuted](http://time.com/4926141/barack-obama-donald-trump-wiretap-doj/) by the Department of Justice following an investigation. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5280636/trump-informant-fbi-campaign/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5280636/trump-informant-fbi-campaign/"},"headline":"Trump Suggests the FBI Had an 'Embedded Informant' in His 2016 Campaign","datePublished":"2018-05-17T14:05:52.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T20:18:07.204Z","description":"President Donald Trump suggested that the F.B.I. under President Barack Obama had embedded an informant within the Trump campaign in 2016.","url":"https://time.com/5280636/trump-informant-fbi-campaign/","keywords":["White House","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd643fd8c187fd73a/6989309c8fd2ee9dd235ba26/trump-fbi-informant.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Nash Jenkins","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/p-nash-jenkins/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd643fd8c187fd73a/6989309c8fd2ee9dd235ba26/trump-fbi-informant.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"President Trump Hosts Leaders From California To Discuss Sanctuary Cities","caption":"President Trump Hosts Leaders From California To Discuss Sanctuary Cities","creditText":"Pool—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/white-house/","name":"White House"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5280636/trump-informant-fbi-campaign/","name":"Trump Suggests the FBI Had an 'Embedded Informant' in His 2016 Campaign"}}]}] ```