With Feds Circling, Trump Asks Allies: Who's 'Wearing a Wire'?
The former president and his advisers are pointing fingers — and looking for “rats” — as the investigations heat up.
www.rollingstone.com
Donald Trump is worried he may have a rat — or multiple rats — in his midst. He's wondering if his phones are tapped, or even if one of his buddies could be "wearing a wire."
As the federal and state investigations into Trump and his orbit swell, so have the former president's suspicions, according to two sources familiar with the matter and another two people close to the twice-impeached former Oval Office occupant.
This summer, Trump has asked close associates if they think his communications are being monitored by the feds, or — per his phrasing — "by Biden." As a source close to Trump describes it to Rolling Stone: "He has asked me and others, 'Do you think our phones are tapped?' Given the sheer volume of investigations going on into the [former] president, I do not think he's assuming anything is outside the realm of possibility."
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The source adds, "He's talked about this seriously [in the past few months], but I know of one time when he made a joke that was something like, 'Be careful what you say on the phone!'"
Moreover, on at least a couple occasions since May, the former president has wondered aloud if there were any Republicans visiting his clubs who could be "wearing a wire," according to another person close to Trump and a different source familiar with the matter. Trump and his allies are baselessly floating the idea that federal agents could be guilty of "planting" incriminating evidence at his private resort. And the ex-president and several of his longtime advisers are trying to figure out if they have, in their terminology, a "mole" or a "rat" in Trump's inner sanctum who is slipping his secrets to the feds.
Multiple people with knowledge of the situation say that as of Wednesday afternoon, Trump and his cohort do not have any evidence to support their groundless talking point that the FBI planted evidence during their search of Trump's home at the Mar-a-Lago club in Florida earlier this week. Still, the sources say, the upper crust of MAGAland has already begun wildly speculating about who the snitch could be, if such a turncoat exists at all. On Wednesday morning, Axios reported that "Trumpworld is abuzz with speculation about which close aide or aides has 'flipped' and provided additional sensitive information to the FBI about what former President Trump was keeping at" his Florida estate. Later that day, intelligence writer William Arkin reported that "the raid on Mar-a-Lago was based largely on information from an FBI confidential human source."
