FBI sent 'sexy bottle blonde' posing as research assistant to former Trump adviser Papadopoulos to probe campaign's Russia ties
The FBI had reportedly sent an undercover investigator to a former Trump campaign adviser in order to extract information pertaining to the campaign's suspected collusion with Russia. According to a bombshell New York Times report, the woman assumed the name Azra Turk while posing as a research assistant who wanted to discuss foreign policy with Trump adviser George Papadopoulos, who once described her as a "sexy bottle blonde" who came on to him at a London bar.
While her real identity remains unknown, Turk traveled to London with Cambridge University professor and longtime FBI informant Stefan Halper, who was instructed to set up a meeting with Papadopoulos, the Times reported.
However, the September 2016 meeting between Papadopoulos and Turk did not fetch anything of value for the feds. A second attempt to extract information was made by Halper, who met the Trump adviser at the Sofitel hotel in London’s West End, but in vain. Turk then returned to the US.
Last year, Papadopoulos sat down with members of Congress for a closed-door interview and described Turk as a "beautiful young lady" who seemed to be willing to sleep with him in exchange for dirt on the Trump campaign.
While Turk “never explicitly said I will sleep with you for this, but her mannerisms and her behavior suggested that she was flirtatious, and she was very open to something like that if I ended up providing what she wanted, whatever that was,” Papadopoulos reportedly told lawmakers.
Papadopoulos also spoke at length about his encounter with Turk in his memoir 'Deep State Target' released in March. He recalled in the book how Turk tried to charm him shortly after he arrived in London, sending a text message that read, “Let’s meet for a drink. I’m looking forward to meeting you.”
The former campaign adviser, who later spent 12 days behind bars for making false statements to the FBI regarding his contacts with Russian intermediaries during the campaign, said he wasn't sure if her text message was "suggestive" until he arrived at the bar where Turk wanted to meet him.
“It was definitely suggestive. Azra Turk is a vision right out of central casting for a spy flick. She’s a sexy bottle blonde in her thirties, and she isn’t shy about showing her curves—as if anyone could miss them. She’s a fantasy’s fantasy,” he wrote.
But Turk apparently blew her cover when she began grilling Papadopoulos about the Trump campaign just five minutes into the meeting.
“She wants to know: are we working with Russia? ‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ I say with a nervous laugh — her question is creepy,” he wrote.
However, Turk kept "pushing" him, placing her hand on his arm, trying to win him over by complimenting his looks, and telling him he's "doing important work."
“I’d love to hear more about the campaign. It is such a fascinating subject," she continued. "How is Trump going to win? How can he beat Hillary Clinton?” he recalled her saying.
Eventually, the Trump loyalist was convinced she wasn't really a research assistant. He waited until they finished their drinks and said goodbye.
Just hours after the Times story broke on Thursday, Papadopoulos retweeted a link to it with a message. “I agree with everything in this superb article except ‘Azra Turk’ clearly was not FBI,” he wrote. “She was CIA and affiliated with Turkish intel. She could hardly speak English and was tasked to meet me about my work in the energy sector offshore Israel/Cyprus which Turkey was competing with.”