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Former FBI Director James Comey personally ordered\u00a0\u201choneypot\u201d<\/em>\u00a0spies to infiltrate Donald Trump\u2019s 2016 presidential campaign, according to an agency whistleblower. The off-the-books operation was described by the agency insider as a\u00a0\u201cfishing expedition\u201d<\/em>\u00a0to find wrongdoing among Trump\u2019s team.<\/p>\n The operation was\u00a0\u201cpersonally directed\u201d<\/em>\u00a0by Comey and launched in June 2015 without any case file being created in the FBI\u2019s database, according to a whistleblower report handed to the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday and seen by the\u00a0Washington Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n At the time, Trump had just announced his first presidential campaign and neither he nor anyone on his campaign team was suspected of any crimes. Nevertheless, Comey ordered two\u00a0\u201choneypot\u201d<\/em>\u00a0agents to infiltrate Trump\u2019s team on the campaign trail with the aim of extracting damning information from adviser George Papadopoulos, the report claimed.<\/p>\n A\u00a0\u201choneypot\u201d<\/em>\u00a0agent refers to an attractive woman who uses a sexual or romantic relationship to gather intelligence from a target.<\/p>\n Comey\u2019s operation took place a year before the FBI\u2019s \u2018Crossfire Hurricane\u2019 investigation into the Trump campaign\u2019s alleged contacts with Russia, which later morphed into Special Counsel Robert Mueller\u2019s two-year \u2018Russiagate\u2019 probe. According to the whistleblower, the honeypot operation was kept\u00a0\u201coff the books\u201d<\/em>\u00a0to conceal it from the US Justice Department\u2019s inspector general, who later\u00a0determined<\/a>\u00a0that Comey knowingly lied when submitting evidence to obtain a warrant to surveil Trump\u2019s campaign.<\/p>\n