London meeting with informants Halper, Turk was 'clearly a CIA operation', Papadopoulos says

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Papadopoulos: Intel agencies spied on me abroad

'Deep State Target' author and former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos reacts to investigations into the genesis of the Russia probe.

Former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos said Tuesday on "The Story" that he believes the CIA was behind an "operation" in which he met with two individuals in London in late 2016 who tried to probe as to whether the Trump campaign had ties to Russia.

Fox News first reported on the involvement of one U.S. intelligence "informant" - who went by the alias Azra Turk - earlier this month.

In that report, Papadopoulos recalled his rendezvous with Turk as "bizarre."

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On Tuesday, Papadopoulos told host Martha MacCallum that he believed the contact with Turk "was clearly a CIA operation."

"That's the reason why I was flown to London, to be spied on, and why the British were also meeting with me and probing me on the same exact day that these two figures were paying me and spying on me and recording my conversation," Papadopoulos said, identifying the second individual as Cambridge University Professor Stefan Halper, a longtime FBI informant.

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Papadopoulos criticized Obama-era CIA Director John Brennan, who told MSNBC this week that the agency does not spy against "domestic individuals."

Papadopoulos previously told Fox News that he met with Turk three times and with Halper once.

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"Yeah, usually the CIA doesn't spy domestically, and that's why they brought me to London to meet Stefan Halper and this informant," he told MacCallum. "So I have to highly disagree with John Brennan and I think the CIA is up to their neck in this."

Papadopoulos also praised Attorney General William Barr's decision to appoint Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham to lead an investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia probe.

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Papadopoulos previously served 12 days in jail after pleading guilty to lying to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigators.

"I think Barr found his 'bulldog' - Mueller had his bulldog [in Andrew] Weissman," he said of the choice of prosecutor Durham. "I think you're probably going to see some people scrutinized, if not indicted, reaching up to the CIA."

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Earlier Tuesday, Papadopoulos told Fox Business Network anchor Maria Bartiromo that other foreign governments were involved in suspicious activities against him.

Fox News' Brooke Singman contributed to this report.