British spy chiefs battling to stop Trump exposing their sources
US President wants to know to what extent MI5 and MI6 were involved in efforts to link him to Russia
MI6 CHIEFS are secretly battling Donald Trump to stop him publishing classified information linked to the Russian election meddling investigation.
The UK is warning he will undermine intelligence gathering if he releases pages of an FBI application to wiretap one of his former campaign advisers.
However, the US president’s allies are fighting back, demanding transparency and asking why Britain would oppose the move unless it had something to hide.
It puts the spotlight on whether the UK played a role in an FBI inquiry launched before the 2016 presidential election into the Trump campaign’s ties to the Kremlin.
The Daily Telegraph talked to more than a dozen UK and US officials, including some in US intelligence, who have revealed details about the row. British spy chiefs have “genuine concern” about sources being exposed if classified parts of the wiretap request are made public, according to figures familiar with the discussions.
“It boils down to the exposure of people,” said one US intelligence official, adding: “We don’t want to reveal sources and methods.”
Another said Britain feared it would set a dangerous “precedent” and make people less likely to share information, knowing one day it could become public.
The row is deemed so politically sensitive that staff at the British embassy in Washington have been barred from discussing it with journalists.
Theresa May, who has a lukewarm relationship with Mr Trump, has been kept at arm’s length and is understood to have not raised the issue directly with him.
The row concerns an FBI request to wiretap Carter Page, a former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, which was made in October 2016 – the month before the US election. The FBI said it had suspicions Mr Page was being targeted for recruitment by the Russian government and cited classified intelligence to make its case.
It was granted approval for 90 days of surveillance by a secret court established by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It was renewed a number of times. Mr Trump wants to declassify 21 pages from one request. He announced the move in September, then backtracked, before this month saying he was “very seriously” considering it. Britain and Australia are understood to oppose the move.
Numerous spokesmen for UK and US government bodies declined to comment.
Mr Page has denied being a foreign agent for Russia.
BRITISH intelligence agencies are being dragged into a heated and partisan battle in Washington over the origins of the investigation into Russian election meddling.
Donald Trump’s allies and former advisers are raising questions about the UK’S role in the probe, given that many of the key figures and meetings were located in Britain.
George Papadopoulos, a former Trump campaign adviser, has publicly claimed he was targeted by British spies and told The Daily Telegraph that he was demanding transparency.
Trump supporters in Congress are focusing on whether British intelligence agents helped their US counterparts investigate links between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin before the 2016 election.
It comes as the Republicans attempt to protect the US president by suggesting the investigation, which continues to this day, was invalid from the start.
The probe, now overseen by special counsel Robert Mueller, is looking into whether Trump campaign figures conspired with the Kremlin and the president to obstruct justice. By suggesting the investigation was set up by shadowy intelligence figures who wanted to thwart Mr Trump’s candidacy from the outset, Republicans are seeking to make it easier for the eventual findings to be waved away.
However, a result of the attack line is that Britain’s spy agencies are being dragged into the claims of “deep state” opposition to Mr Trump, which risks inflaming UK-US tensions at a time when Britain wants to deepen ties as it leaves the European Union.
The developments have led to a fierce row behind the scenes that have pitted Britain’s spy chiefs and their US counterparts against Mr Trump and his allies.
The US president wants to release 21 pages of classified material from an FBI application to wiretap Carter Page, his former campaign foreign policy adviser. The wiretap was first granted in Oct 2016, the month before the elec- tion, and renewed a number of times.
Republican allies of Mr Trump in the US Congress have pounced on the application, claiming the FBI failed to follow due process and presented information in a flawed way.
Memos detailing alleged ties between Mr Trump and Russia compiled by Christopher Steele, a former MI6 officer, were cited in the application, which could explain some of the British concern.
Mr Papadopoulos, a former Trump campaign adviser who was sentenced to 14 days in prison for lying about his conversations with Russian-linked figures, has begun publicly pointing a finger of blame at Britain.
In April 2016, he was told by Joseph Mifsud, an academic allegedly tied to Russia, that the Kremlin had damaging emails about Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, before the documents had been made public.
In May 2016, Mr Papadopoulos reportedly mentioned that fact to Alexander Downer, the Australian high commissioner in London – a boast that triggered the FBI to start “Operation Crossfire Hurricane”, which would eventually become the Russia probe. Mr Papadopoulos has recently been interviewed at least six times on Fox News – Mr Trump’s favourite cable news channel – and pushed the idea that Western intelligence set him up. He has suggested he was “lured” to London “so that the British would spy on me” and was targeted by a “plot by Western intelligence”.
He told The Daily Telegraph: “The British Government has a lot of explaining to do. It’s in their interest to be transparent. Why was the British intelligence apparatus weaponised against Trump and his advisers?”
Other Trump allies are echoing such claims. A former White House adviser said: “You know the Brits are up to their neck … I think that stuff is going to implicate MI5 and MI6 in a bunch of activities they don’t want to be implicated in, along with FBI, counterterrorism and the CIA.”
A former UK official warned that many of the claims originate from Right-wing internet forums, and said they must be treated with suspicion given they are often cited without hard evidence and bring a political benefit to the White House.