FBI looking into James Comey’s off-the-books ‘honeypot’ operation targeting 2016 Trump campaign

FBI leadership is starting an investigation into the origins of the agency’s plan a decade ago to infiltrate the campaign of presidential candidate Donald Trump using two female undercover “honeypot” agents.

The off-the-books investigation, launched in 2015 by FBI Director James B. Comey, was revealed by an agency whistleblower in a protected disclosure to the House Judiciary Committee last year and first reported exclusively by The Washington Times in October.

In the intelligence community, a honeypot commonly refers to an undercover operative, usually a woman, who feigns sexual or romantic interest to obtain information from a target.

The whistleblower said two female FBI undercover employees infiltrated Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign at high levels and were directed to act as “honeypots” while traveling with Mr. Trump and his campaign staff.

The Times has learned that the bureau, now led by Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino, is looking for those once-undercover employees under Mr. Comey’s direction.

The FBI declined to comment.

According to the whistleblower disclosure, which The Times reviewed, the investigation differed from Crossfire Hurricane, a later FBI counterintelligence operation that looked into never-proved allegations that the campaign was colluding with Russia.

The whistleblower said the early off-the-books criminal investigation targeted Mr. Trump and his staff.

Mr. Trump launched his presidential campaign on June 16, 2015, about a year before the FBI opened Crossfire Hurricane.

The whistleblower agent “personally knew” that Mr. Comey ordered an FBI investigation into Mr. Trump and that Mr. Comey “personally directed it,” according to the disclosure.

The investigation did not appear to target a specific crime but was more of what agents would describe as a fishing expedition to find anything incriminating against Mr. Trump.

The whistleblower said the undercover operation was obscured from Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz, who investigated misconduct in the bureau’s probe of the Trump campaign.

“The case had no predicated foundation, so Comey personally directed the investigation without creating an official case file in Sentinel or any other FBI system,” according to the whistleblower’s disclosure. “The FBI has multiple methods of protecting highly sensitive investigations, so Comey did not have a legitimate reason not to officially create an official investigation file or have a file number.”

The disclosure says the secret investigation may have indicated institutional bias at the FBI against Mr. Trump, though “it does not appear that any information about this investigation was turned over to Trump’s criminal defense counsels.”

The investigation was eventually closed because a major newspaper obtained a photograph of one of the undercovers and was about to publish it, but the FBI press office told the outlet that the photograph was an FBI informant who would be killed if the photograph was publicly released.

In fact, it was a photograph of the FBI undercover employee.

The FBI whistleblower employee noted in the disclosure that one of the undercovers agreed to be transferred to the CIA so she would not be available as a potential witness.

The other undercover employee was rewarded for her activities through a promotion in the bureau and is now a high-level FBI executive in a major field office.

The whistleblower employee observed one or more employees in the FBI being directed to never discuss the operation with anyone ever again, including other people involved in the 2016 Trump campaign infiltration operation.

The FBI employee making this disclosure took this admonishment as a direct threat to the employees who received it.