Trump associate Felix Sater says president wanted to use his CIA, FBI work on campaign trail

President Trump’s former associate Felix Sater said in a new interview that Trump wanted to speak about Sater’s past with the FBI and CIA on the campaign trail in 2016, which Trump thought would boost his “patriotic image.”

In an interview with the “Skullduggery” podcast by Yahoo News, Sater revealed that Trump approached him about telling the story of Sater’s work as an informant for the FBI and CIA, including work in Afghanistan and elsewhere in Asia to provide intelligence agencies with information about satellite phones being used by the then-leader of al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden.

{mosads}Trump, Sater told Yahoo News, wanted to show that “the guy that worked with him, you know, was doing stuff to protect our country,” which the then-candidate though would help him on the campaign trail.

But Sater said the president was blocked from doing so because the information was part of then-sealed court documents that government prosecutors argued at the time could not be made public due to national security concerns.

Sater told the podcast that his work as a cooperator with the FBI and CIA followed a criminal past that included a bar fight and financial crimes, for which he said he was trying to make amends.

“I know for a fact that I have stopped 100,000 times more crime than I committed with my bar fight and the stock fraud,” Sater told Yahoo. “And I know that I protected my country. And I know I risked my life for it.”

Trump attempted to distance himself from Sater in 2015 when his connections to the Russian American former mobster were revealed, telling reporters at the time that he two were not close and he likely would not recognize Sater if he were in the room with him.

Sater mocked those claims from Trump during his interview, telling the podcast that he would have to discuss Trump’s words with his psychiatrist.

“I think it’s something that I have to truly dive deeper on my next session with my psychiatrist,” Sater joked.