In this episode I address explosive allegations by a central player in the Russian “collusion” story about who funded the operation. I also discuss the Democrats’ new tax plan and how it’s a rare moment of honesty about their intentions.
Incredible allegations in this opinion piece regarding who is funding the anti-Trump investigation.
This Democrat representative admitted on television that the Russia collusion story is a “running joke.”
How did Alexander Downer come into contact with Papadopoulos?
Another Obama official is going to escape justice.
This coffee shop refuses to serve police officers. Where is the liberal outrage?
The Democrats are now openly running on hiking your taxes.
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Get ready to hear the truth about America with your host, Dan Bongino.
Alright, welcome to the Dan Bongino Show.
Producer Joe, how are you today?
Monday, Monday, I'm ready to go.
Who sang that song?
The mom is in the pop business?
Yeah, good for you.
You sure I got that right?
Because I always get pop culture stuff wrong.
I used to listen to that song in the car with my mother.
I remember that.
Is that right?
Yeah, I remember a lot of it.
It seems a little old for you, man.
Yeah, it is.
But my mom used to listen to Jackie Wilson.
Remember Johnny Mathis and the Brooklyn Bridge?
She loved that.
Jackie Wilson?
And she loved Hall and Oates.
She used to sing Hall and Oates all the time.
It's Blue-Eyed Soul!
Yeah, remember the kisses on the list or whatever that song was?
Yeah, I remember that growing up in a car driving out in Long Island.
It's funny.
Hey, can I just lodge a formal protest, by the way, with Daylight Savings Time?
It is officially the worst idea since, you know, the low-flow faucet and the low-flow toilet bowl flusher, okay?
The low flow faucet, you have to wash your hands for about 25 to 30 minutes just to get the soap off your darn hands.
Daylight savings time is the dumbest thing ever.
I had to get up this morning at like the equivalent of about 4.30, which was supposedly 5.30, which is really 4.30 because of daylight savings time to do Fox and Friends.
Poor Joe, who does a morning show, had to get up at like what?
You didn't even go to sleep, I bet, because you were like, forget it.
I'm not even going to bother.
I was whipped, man.
Yeah, Joe had to get up at 2, which is really 1, which is like 1.
1 o'clock is like club time in New York City.
Like, people are still in the club.
Give me a break.
Oh, man.
Daylight savings time.
Officially the dumbest idea ever.
Let's just stay on daylight savings time forever if we want more sun.
How about that?
Let's just stick with it like they're talking about in Florida.
Let's just stick with it.
Please.
Man, alive.
What a dumb idea.
Hate it.
And I busted up my elbow again this weekend grappling, which is really, it's been epic.
By the way, I got a cool Facebook post.
I was doing a fight simulation, as folks, if you check me out on Facebook, a fight simulation class and grappling this weekend, which is pretty cool.
It's like where you put on the gloves, the grappling, you know, the grappling punching gloves that have the fingers, they're fingerless, and you get to like knock the hell out of each other.
So I have a pretty cool picture on Facebook.
But it was more in relationship to beta maleism, but go check that out.
All right, I got a lot for you today, folks.
Democrats have released their new 2020 platform, Joe.
We're gonna hike your taxes!
Yeah, baby!
Yeah!
We need some macho man or something.
People missing macho man, Joe.
I just want you to know that.
Oh, really?
I've got a lot of emails.
They're very upset that Macho Man is not around.
And I've had a request for The Dude to come back, too.
Oh, huh.
Did you see the post by the guy that had The Dude sign?
Yeah, that's from Crowder.
Steve Crowder's Louder With Crowder, which I think I will be a guest on next Monday, by the way.
Yeah, so I got that tax plan.
I got a fascinating break on the Downer saga and a couple other things.
All right, so stay tuned.
They'll go anyway.
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Okay.
Where do I start here?
Let's start with this one.
This is a great story.
I saw it at Legal Surrection.
So Democrats are finally coming out.
You know how I always told you, Joe, that they rarely run on their ideas?
They always run on identity politics.
Because Democrat ideas largely suck.
Give us your money.
Give us your health care.
Send your kids to scrappy schools.
You know, that's really the entire genesis of the Democrat, you know, legislative push and legislative agenda, right?
Yeah.
But I will give them credit!
They finally come out and put something on paper that is not, which is stunning, legislation targeting you as a racist, misogynist, phobophobic, isthophobic, whatever else, right?
They have put down their new tax hike plan down and here it is, folks!
So if you're listening and you're thinking about voting Democrat in the midterms in 2018 and 2020, here's what we got ready for you, baby, yeah!
We got a corporate tax hike of 25% up from 21%!
Yeah, baby, yeah!
Yeah, baby!
Yeah!
Yeah, baby!
25% corporate tax.
It's 21 now.
So four percentage point tax hike.
So all those bonuses you got, you can wipe that out.
Nice!
Sense the sarcasm obviously dripping from my fangs.
We have a hike in the death tax coming.
Yeah, baby!
11.2 million is now the exemption.
It's going back to 5.6 million.
That's great.
Isn't that awesome?
So if you're a farmer who's basically cash poor but asset rich, which is basically most farmers out there in what the Democrats call flyover country and what you and I would call home.
I don't live there, but I would call that America.
Right?
You have a bunch of land.
You farm for a living.
It's been handed down to you.
You don't have a bunch of cash in the bank, but you have land that's worth a decent chunk of change because it's a family farm.
Say that farm is worth now something like, you had an exemption now.
If you were to pass that, any of that land on as an asset, you would be taxed on basically $5.6 million worth of worth instead of $11 million.
By the way, not including the fact that land was probably bought already with taxable income.
So you've already been taxed.
Yeah.
But remember now, what winds up happening with the death tax, because liberals Joe, the irony of liberalism is liberalism sticks everybody, even liberals, sticks them in the craw, punches them in the gut, kneecaps them.
The irony of this is the whole idea of the death tax, just so we're tracking folks, you had an exemption on 11 million in assets, now the Democrats want to lower it back to 5 million.
This is their tax hike plan because they want to tax it.
Yeah.
You've already paid taxes on this money and again the irony of this is that a lot of these farmers in middle America that are farming and producing the food we eat that are asset wealthy but cash poor because obviously their wealth is tied up in the land.
Yeah.
They can't afford to transfer that land to their kids at these lower tax rates, exemption rates, because if they were to do it, they would have to pay a tax bill, Joe, in, get ready for it, cash that they don't have!
Yeah, well, you know, that's just like, uh, Your opinion, man.
Yeah, well, just like your opinion, man.
The dude makes a triumphant return.
Yes, that is just your opinion, man.
Because what winds up happening in the real world, outside of liberal opinion, is then these farmers in middle America have to then sell and get rid of their farms before they die.
Because if they transfer it, they don't have the cash to pay the tax in form of assets.
They'll be dead, obviously, but their estate.
That's the whole reason it's called the death tax.
They'll be dead, but their estate will have to pay it.
The estate doesn't have the cash!
So what happens, Joe?
They sell it to what?
Big agriculture companies that can come in right away before Joe dies, because Joe can't transfer his land to little Joe, because if he does, he has to pay a tax bill.
So what does he do?
Right before he dies, he sells it to a big agriculture company.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I thought the whole idea here With liberalism.
Was it big corporations and big agriculture and anything they put big in front of is horrible and awful and is destructive to society in general.
I thought that's what the idea was.
So what, it's not the idea any longer?
So now we're making big agriculture companies, which I don't have a problem with, but the left does, bigger, because America's middle class, small farmers, and even with big assets in land, but are cash poor, are now selling their assets basically at a premium, because they have no other choice, to big agriculture companies.
Sorry, I didn't mean to get off topic there, but again, this stuff drives me crazy because there are people out there who still, despite all the evidence to the contrary, swear liberals are in it for the little guy.
So here's another one.
Here's part of the Democrats' new tax hike plan for 2018.
They're gonna go up, they're gonna raise the top tax rate from 37 to 39.6%.
Nice job!
Yeah, baby!
Democrats are back!
Yeah, boy!
Yeah, Flava!
Bring it!
Yeah!
He's endorsing that plan!
He probably isn't.
I mean, the funny thing is, Flava's got some money.
He's probably like, hell no, I don't want that!
So your taxes are going up if you're in the top bracket again from 37 to 39.6.
Democrats, 2018.
Nice job, fellas.
Nice job.
Well done.
Way to bring it.
Folks, again, I will give them credit.
I'm not being sarcastic.
At least now, they're putting on paper what we've quietly known to be their agenda forever, which is taking more of your money.
But now it's on paper.
You can't run from it.
I'm going to put the article from Legal Insurrection, it's a good one, up at the show notes today at Bongino.com.
Please check it out.
It's really good.
It aligns all this stuff out.
But I just want you to make sure you understand Before I get off this topic, because I had a lot of news.
It was a busy news weekend.
Yeah, it was.
Yeah, seriously.
Just understand that voting for Democrats is voting against everything we've seen in the last, what, three months, four months or so, as a consequence of the Trump and GOP tax cut plan.
And I can comfortably say that because no Democrats voted for it.
I would happily call it a bipartisan tax plan if a single Democrat voted for this thing, but they didn't.
Not one.
So it is the Trump GOP tax cut plan.
The fact that you got bonuses and the economy is growing as a result of it, that was because of that plan.
Vote for Democrats in 2018 and that's all going away.
Just so you understand, I'm just putting it out on the table.
That's not an opinion, that's a fact.
It's on paper.
Read the article yourself.
There are links in there to the actual Democrat plan in case you think any of this is hyperbolic or exaggeration for effect, which it isn't.
Unbelievable.
But again, at least they're being honest, folks.
That's what they're all about.
All right.
I was getting a lot of comments on... People were surprised, I think, about this last week that I didn't comment on this story on Friday, but I wanted to feel it out and see how I would approach it, Joe.
You know how we always say... I didn't tell you this, of course, before the show, but you know how we always tell people to remember the names.
Remember the names when it comes to this Trump-Russia collusion fairy tale and the real collusion between the Clintons, the DNC, and the Russians.
I always tell you to remember the names in the case because you never know where they're going to reappear.
And there was a name that reappeared again in an op-ed piece at the Daily Caller.
Oleg Deripaska, our old friend, wrote an op-ed piece, a pretty eye-opening and shocking one.
Now, just so you understand, the reason I didn't comment on it on Friday is I'm trying to figure out His reason for doing this.
And I read a piece over the weekend in the Wall Street Journal, a rather long but good one about Russian ambition that I said, all right, now we got it.
I think I'm comfortable now discussing this.
Let me just rewind this because this is important stuff.
I'm going to make this real simple for you.
Cool.
Deripaska is a Russian oligarch.
He is an extremely wealthy Russian businessman connected to Vladimir Putin.
I mean, when we say wealthy, I'm not talking millionaire.
I'm talking billionaire type status with a B, right?
Very connected into the Russian hierarchy of power, Putin included.
Deripaska is intimately connected to this Trump-Russia investigation because he has a lobbyist, a guy by the last name Waldman.
This lobbyist is also connected to Christopher Steele.
How do we know this?
So just follow me here.
Some of you have heard this already, but it's important because he said something in his op-ed, Deripaska, that's going to blow your mind.
And I just want you to be skeptical about it.
But just the background a little bit.
Waldman reached out to a Democrat senator.
Waldman's a lobbyist, again, that works for this Russian oligarch, Deripaska.
Waldman reached out to a Democrat senator and said, hey, I can connect you with Christopher Steele, the Russian spy who produced the fake dossier.
And those texts, when they were released, became quite a controversy.
The senator was Mark Warner.
Right.
So now we know Deripaska has a connection to a lobbyist who we are absolutely sure has a connection to Steele because he's in text messages that are not disputed, to be real, saying to a Democrat senator, I could connect you to Christopher Steele.
He wants to talk about some stuff.
Now, I've suggested to you that this was part of a Russian effort to influence the election.
Now, Deripaska comes out this week.
Now, you may say, well, how, by the way?
I'm convinced the information Steele received was either entirely fabricated, or the information Steele received from the Russians to put in the dossier to go get the Trump team, was given to him by the Russians in an effort to corrupt the US.
They knew it was fake, but they were giving it to him anyway, knowing he would publish it.
All right?
Yeah.
Deripaska Joe writes an op-ed in the Daily Caller, and in there, this is amazing, the information.
Let me just read to you this quote, because this is going to blow your mind.
He says, He's talking about a guy named Daniel Jones.
Daniel Jones is a former Senate aide to Dianne Feinstein, a liberal Democratic senator.
So this is Deripaska writing about what he learned from Jones.
He says, Yet on March 16, 2017, Daniel Jones, himself a team member of Fusion GPS, self-described former FBI agent, and, as we now know from the media, an ex-Feinstein staffer, met with my lawyer, Adam Waldman.
Stop!
His lawyer, Adam Waldman, who is also the guy connected to Christopher Steele, trying to connect Christopher Steele to Democrat senators.
You tracking?
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
So he says, this guy Dan Jones met with Adam Waldman, my lawyer, and this is how Waldman Or Jones, excuse me, this is how Jones, the Stafford to a Democrat Senator, Dianne Feinstein, described Fusion to Waldman.
He described them as, quote, a shadow media organization helping the government, funded by a group of Silicon Valley billionaires and George Soros.
Wait, what?
Hold on.
Yeah, I know.
Believe me, if that was... Let me just read on.
My lawyer testified these facts to the Senate Intelligence Committee on November 3rd.
Mr. Soros is, not coincidentally, also the founder of two ethics watchdogs, NGOs, attacking Representative Nunes' committee memo, which is interesting.
Now, I got a lot of commentary on this.
Man, how did you not talk about Deripaska?
Deripaska's saying this whole thing was funded by Soros and Fusion was funded by Soros.
Folks, he may be correct.
There are certainly a lot of, and he says not coincidentally, but there were a lot of odd coincidences in this case.
Here's why I'm still suspect about this whole thing and I think you should be too.
And why I held off on Friday.
I've always told you on the show that the hallmark of a conspiracy theory is when it can be neatly tied up in a bow and all of a sudden the pieces fit together like, wow, look at that!
You want to, I mean, a conspiracy theory, it just, that's the hallmark of it.
You name a conspiracy theory and that we know is, you know, is largely nonsensical and there's always some like tidbit of information like, And the NSA did it!
Oh yeah, that's it, we got it!
It's always neatly tied up in a bow.
I find the fact that he's writing about Soros not to be unbelievable.
It may in fact be very true.
Some of the things he says probably are true.
But I was reading this weekend Fascinating piece in the journal from an expert on Russia, and I use the term expert always loosely, but this guy had some very good commentary, and he said, listen, the Russians, they're a providential power, Joe.
In other words, they're not a real world power.
They don't even have a top 10 world economy.
Their country's decaying, it's demographically in a time bomb, but Putin sees himself as some God-gifted, anointed one, and he sees himself on the world stage as some kind of, you know, anointed world power, Real one.
It's almost like a God complex.
Reminds me of that movie, you know, Malice with Nicole Kidman where she marries the surgeon and in the legal proceeding when he gets sued for one of the clients, one of the surgical patients dying.
He's like, I am God!
Like, this is Putin.
He has this God complex not commensurate with his actual place in the real world.
Why am I bringing any of this up?
Yeah.
Because he goes on later in the piece to talk about how all the Russians can do right now, folks.
They have nothing.
They've been defenestrated.
They have nothing.
Their economy is collapsing.
They are in a demographic time bomb.
The country, folks, is literally dying.
It is dying.
The replacement birth rate they are dying off is not enough.
Their economy is a failure.
Their economic system is a failure.
All Putin has is watching the West, us, collapse quicker than him, of which he wants to aid the process.
Listen, foreign policy experts are wrong on a lot of things all the time.
But that doesn't mean some of their commentary isn't You know, isn't fact-based sometimes?
And Sage, this is Sage advice!
Be cautious of anything people connected to Putin put out there, even if it's a tidbit of information, folks, that makes the case I've been making forever, by the way, that I have no doubt Trump was framed, and I have no doubt the Hillary team colluded with foreign nationals.
None!
But I'm just telling you, be cautious of information from Russians that ties it up in a neat little bow.
Oh, George Soros did it!
There we go!
We got bingo!
All figured out, Joe!
Okay!
The book's ready!
I'm gonna call up my co-author in the book.
Just write the final... Soros did it!
Chapter... What's it?
Chapter 12, the last one.
Chapter 12, Soros did it!
Just be cautious.
That may be true.
Listen, please don't email me nasty grabs on this.
Well, you can, I'll read them, but you know, it's a two-way exchange.
I talk to you, you email me back.
I'm just asking you as a friend to be skeptical, because what'll happen here is if we fall into this, and this is a trap, and we start, look, Soros did it, Deripaska said so, and it turns out to be another head fake, And Russian-sponsored propaganda to get us to take ourselves down, then we then become what the Democrats were.
The Democrats fell into, folks, a Russian trap.
The Russians fed Steele, I believe, bogus information knowing they could get it into American courts to target the political opponent of Hillary Clinton, knowing they'd sow chaos.
They had negative information on Hillary and Trump.
Do you see what I'm saying?
They're gold, folks.
This weekend piece in the journal was terrific.
I'd include it in the show notes, but it's subscriber only, so it's a waste of everybody's time.
But I'm summing up for you the essence of the piece.
They believe themselves to be a god-like power, despite no real-world ability to influence that god-like power.
No economy, crumbling military.
Demographic time bomb.
They don't have the physical power to win this physical fight.
So what they have to do is do PSYOPs.
And they have to hope that the left collapses quicker than they do.
So what do they do?
They sow discontent.
They're constantly putting out misinformation.
Trump was in a golden shower incident.
Hillary Clinton was born on Mars.
This is what they do, hoping the West will collapse on itself, Joe.
That we'll start attacking each other.
And you know what?
It's working.
It's working.
The Russian collusion thing is a sham.
It's a sham.
It's a scam.
Everybody knows it.
There was a Democrat representative on a weekend news show this weekend, Himes.
H-I-M-E-S.
You know what?
I'll put the story in the show notes.
You can see the clip yourself at Independent Journal Review.
Saying that this Russian thing is a running joke amongst its constituents.
You think I'm making it up?
Read the piece.
I'll put it in the show notes today.
It's a farce!
The collusion story's made up!
The Russians are trying to sow discontent, and I'm afraid this Deripaska piece may be another effort to do that, to get us down into the rabbit hole, Joe.
Luke Soros did it.
And again, just one more time, sorry.
It may be the case!
But I would not trust a damn thing coming from these people.
This is the same guy connected to a lawyer lobbyist, who's connected to Christopher Steele, who's already been the recipient of bad Russian info.
And now what?
We're gonna jump right on that?
I take a deep breath on that one, is all I'm saying.
Does that make sense, Joe?
Yeah, I mean, you've already given us bad information, so hey, you got any more bad information?
Oh, cool.
Bring it my way.
Let's jump on the train.
Let's jump on the brand information gravy train.
Makes sense.
Yeah, let's not.
So be careful about that.
All right, I got another interesting tidbit of information sent in by a listener, which is really terrific, by the way.
Thank you to everyone who sends me stuff.
I get probably two, three hundred emails a day on the show, and a lot of them are really good.
Some of them, though, really blow me away, and I got a great email from someone about an article I'm going to get to in a second.
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Okay.
Great piece, again, I'll put in the show notes.
It's from January 6th, by the way, just so you... Wait, hold on.
Let me just check to make sure.
I got the date right on this because this was a really good piece.
It's from an Australian.
Yeah, January 6, 2018.
News.com.au.
So it's from an Australian news entity.
Romantic encounters sparked Australia's role in FBI probe into US election.
This is a short but sweet piece.
I will have it to show notes.
Please check it out because Joe, this again goes to show and prove my point here.
That this was a setup, a framing job on the Trump team the whole time.
The evidence is getting overwhelming, folks.
Remember, every single person that has contacted the Trump team, or that's been contacted by
the Trump team, or that the Trump team has had some meetings set up with, has been either
connected to the Clintons or connected to someone connected to the Clintons.
Yep.
Downer is one of them.
Here's the fascinating part of this Downer piece, right?
So Alexander Downer meets in this London bar with George Papadopoulos, who was a low-level Trump foreign policy advisor.
I mean, as low-level as you get.
He's this one picture of him in a meeting with like 10 other people and Trump, right?
Now, just to be clear on this, because some people have been a little bit confused.
Some said, well, why target this guy Papadopoulos, right?
Folks, they had a really tough time, the Trump team, finding foreign policy advisors.
They did.
I mean, that's just a fact.
A lot of the other more establishment, Joe, presidential campaigns, Jeb Bush.
We had, you know, Rubio and others out there.
They had scooped up a lot of the heavies.
So the people who were left, Trump was a, you know, renegade kind of outside candidate.
The people they had scooped up, but to be candid, it wasn't Trump's fault, Joe, but they were not the A team.
Yeah.
Papadopoulos may have been an easy target in this framing operation against Trump.
He may have been because they really didn't have any other options.
I mean, who else was there to go to?
Some of the other more seasoned people on the Trump team, they had a few who'd been around, were probably, you know, smart enough to ignore Any kind of approach to be involved with the Russians in any way, if you get what I'm saying.
So, this is an interesting piece because I've wondered the entire time, and I think you should too, how the hell... You notice how I put the... That was weird.
I didn't do that on purpose.
Seriously, maybe I just haven't had enough water this morning.
How the hell does Papadopoulos meet up with this guy down in a London bar?
This can't be chance.
Folks, Let me just read this to you, because this is interesting.
Fairfax Media, this is from that story, reports Downer arranged a meeting with Papadopoulos, an American man based in London, in May of 2016, which would eventually become a bombshell conversation between the pair where the Trump staffer let slip he knew of a Russian, quote, dirt file on the Clinton campaign consisting of thousands of hacked emails.
Now, later on in this piece, they report that Downer Had some kind of pre-existing relationship with a woman Papadopoulos was kind of like dating or had some kind of relationship with at a time.
Huh.
Huh!
Hold hands you lovebirds!
That was a hold hands you lovebirds from the Three Stooges.
Is that?
Yeah, I like the Stooges.
I liked when they did the double two-finger poke, and they put the block up.
You know the block, right?
The sidehand?
Man, that was my favorite part.
How did...
You know, I've tried to explain to you,
given my background in law enforcement, that cases are never proved, folks.
They're proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
A lot of these things could be, in fact, coincidental.
They could be.
But the coincidences in this case are adding up.
Is it possible?
Possible that this pre-existing relationship between Downer and this woman made Papadopoulos a target?
I mean, it's not like we haven't seen this tactic before.
Huh.
Yeah.
Now, I don't... Listen, it could be chance.
Let me just put that out there.
It could be.
I'm just trying to suggest to you that all of these people who are approaching the Trump team are somehow connected to people connected to the Clintons.
Downer, we already know through his...
Australian government, a program he supported, they transferred 25 million dollars to the Clinton Foundation while he was a representative in diplomatic fashion for the Australian government.
We know there's a pre-existing relationship there.
All of a sudden he knows this woman who's related to, excuse me, who is having some kind of relationship with Papadopoulos and a meeting gets set up in a London bar?
Folks, it's just beyond odd how many, you know, coincidences we've seen in this.
Over and over and over, it happens again.
You know, the Russian lawyer who shows up to meet with Don Jr.
Oh, they're connected to Fusion GPS.
Oh, Fusion GPS is running a background investigation on Donald Trump, paid for by the Clintons.
I mean, this is beyond, you know, it's beyond chance.
At some point, we have to start to say to ourselves, why isn't Mueller investigating this?
And one more point on this, on the Mueller, because I want to go on to this too, because another story that broke this weekend.
This was at Bloomberg.
That Mueller Joe is now supposedly delaying any obstruction of justice investigation into Donald Trump.
Folks, this investigation is a force.
I've told you for a while now, this Mueller investigation is a farce.
With all due respect to Bob Mueller and his generous history of service to the country, the Bob Mueller investigation is a sham.
I don't know if it's personal.
I don't know what it is.
I don't know if it's some professional slight he feels.
I'm talking about Bob Mueller, by the way.
That Bob Mueller feels Donald Trump engaged him with him.
I don't know what it is.
But this investigation at this point is clearly a sham.
They have no collusion, they have no conspiracy, and as Andy McCarthy's written frequently in the National Review, and he's right, Joe, the essence of a conspiracy investigation, right?
In other words, that Donald Trump conspired to overthrow the election with the Russians.
The essence of it is getting someone at some point to plead guilty to the actual conspiracy.
Don't you find it odd?
That all of the prosecutions in this case, none of them have anything to do with a conspiracy between Donald Trump and the actual Russians because it doesn't exist.
I said it on Fox this morning.
Now, the real purpose of this investigation, not to repeat last week's show, but just to quickly repeat the point, is to cover for the misdeeds of the Clintons who I told you are connected to the people like Downer and others who are approaching the Trump team and then ratting the Trump team out on things that Are suspiciously even non-criminal to law enforcement.
Saying the Russians may have had dirt on Hillary is not criminal.
Remember, they didn't get Papadopoulos for a crime.
They got Papadopoulos for lying to the FBI about the meeting.
It wasn't what he did in the meeting.
It was that he lied about the meeting.
I think he was afraid.
I don't know.
I can't get it in his head.
But no one's pled guilty, folks, to the actual conspiracy.
The Mueller investigation right now is a smokescreen to cover up for Democrat misdeeds and they're dealing with foreign nationals, Steele and the Russians, to get bogus information on the Trump team to frame them.
And secondly, to cover for unmasking, as we saw last week now that Bob Mueller's looking into this UAA thing, the United Arab Emirates meeting, which if you missed last week's show, that's where Susan Rice has already admitted to unmasking.
Trump met with people from the United Arab Emirates.
Now, mysteriously Joe, all of a sudden Bob Mueller's looking into the United Arab Emirates and their influence on the election.
Susan Rice has already admitted that it was the United Arab Emirates meeting with the Trump team that was part of this large unmasking scheme to spy on Trump people.
Right, right.
Wow, and now all of a sudden Bob Mueller's looking into that too.
Folks, this is a smokescreen.
Now I bring it up because The Bloomberg piece?
Oh, now, Joe, Bob Mueller is gonna hold off on the obstruction investigation.
They're saying it's because of two reasons, okay?
Here are your two takeaways.
This is their sources, by the way.
Number one, Mueller's afraid that if he charges Trump with obstruction, That they're going to fire him or shut him down.
Or possibility number two is that if he doesn't, this is one I believe by the way, if he doesn't charge Trump with obstruction, that there's going to be pressure by the Republican Congress to shut this thing down.
Notice what's not in there.
The truth.
I'm not trying to be flowery and get at the focus group tested talking points and give some motivational speech here.
Notice what's not in there though.
The sources, none of the sources said Bob Mueller is just interested in the truth.
If Bob Mueller has no evidence of obstruction of justice, has no evidence of Russian collusion or a conspiracy to overthrow the election, isn't it, shouldn't it be an imperative right now for Bob Mueller as a public servant paid by you by the taxpayers to get the darn truth out there?
Not to be worried about who's pressuring what?
Are they going to pressure to shut him down?
Are they going to fire him?
I thought this was about the truth.
It's not about the truth.
So follow me here, Joe.
I may have lost you.
No.
They're saying Mueller's delaying obstruction because he's either afraid he's going to get fired or he's afraid if he doesn't find obstruction there's going to be pressure to shut him down.
There is no comment from the source whatsoever about Mueller actually looking for the truth.
Where's the damn truth?
Now, I'm going to tell you why he's really delaying obstruction.
He's delaying an investigation or a conclusion on an obstruction of justice charge because they want something to hold over Trump's head right through the 2018 elections.
It doesn't make sense any other way!
The elections are coming up in November.
They need to get a House majority to try to impeach the president.
They need it!
They don't want to come out before the election.
I don't know if it's out of personal animus or what by Bob Mueller.
They don't want to come out before the election and say, listen, Trump's clear.
He didn't do anything.
They don't want to do it.
Not because it's for any other reason, folks, other than it's the truth.
And when the truth comes out, the Democrats are going to be horrified.
And by the way, it's already starting to creep out there.
It's already starting to creep out there amongst the liberal intelligentsia, Joe.
That the collusion narrative is a total farce.
You're seeing it now.
I don't want to sound like conspiratorial because Saturday Night Live is probably just joking, but they did a funny skit this weekend.
I'll tie this up for you in a second, but Saturday Night Live did a pretty funny skit this weekend where they were imitating The Bachelor.
For those of you who missed The Bachelor, The Bachelor's this guy Ari, and I've watched some of the show, and he broke up with this lady at the end, Becca.
It was really a horrible looking thing to watch.
It was like watching a train wreck on live TV, right?
The woman was devastated, and this guy came off really horribly.
I mean, he just came off like a total scam artist.
But Saturday Night Live did a skit on this, where they imitate The Bachelor coming in to break up with her.
And, you know, of course, it's two Saturday Night Live actors.
And the actor's dressed up like Bob Mueller.
You know, with that Bob Mueller.
And the guy comes in, he says, and, you know, you think they're going to break up?
And he's like, you know, you have no evidence of Trump collusion.
And it was all about them breaking up with the Trump collusion narrative.
You had to see it.
It was kind of goofy, but it was funny, right?
Now, I'm not saying Saturday Night Live is in cahoots.
I'm just telling you that even Hollywood Notoriously, well they're in New York, but the entertainment community is starting to understand that this thing is a farce.
I already told you about, in case you think I'm pulling this out of, you know, my rear here, that this Democratic rep on the weekend shows, Himes, is already starting to acknowledge this is a running joke.
They don't have anything!
The investigation, ladies and gentlemen, is a smokescreen.
It's been a smokescreen the entire time to cover up Democrat malfeasance and the fact that the Obama administration has a lot of explaining to do about starting an investigation into their political opponents and using unmasking to do so.
They are in a world of trouble, folks.
Mark my words on it.
All right, I got a couple other stories I want to get.
Sorry if I don't mean to motor through the news, but I feel like over the weekend I have an obligation to get to you what happened.
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Okay.
Oh, this is a, you know, I've, I've been on this for a while on cable news.
This is, let me just pull this up here.
I've been bothered by this bifurcation of our justice system, Joe, I think as you and a lot of other listeners have been.
Yeah, me too.
The fact that, and I get it folks, I understand why a lot of you are very upset, a lot of you are being, are very, you know, upset at Jeff Sessions, what's going on, and this It just seems like when you're connected and in power, that you're part of the insulated, protected class and the rest of us, you know, like Papadopoulos and Mike Flynn, you know, you say something wrong in an FBI meeting, you're in jail for false statements to the FBI, yet you get hit
Hillary Clinton who trades classified information over a private email server.
Nothing happens there.
Four people die in Benghazi.
The federal government does almost nothing to respond.
Nothing happens there.
The IRS targets conservatives.
Lois Lerner gets a pension.
I understand your frustration.
I am as pissed off as you are about this stuff.
And not to aggravate you more on a Monday, but You know, I put out some good news last week.
If you missed the shows, I'm very confident that Sessions is working behind the scenes and some good things are going to happen.
But here's a little bit of bad news.
Another article I have in the show notes today in the Independent Journal Review is that Jim Clapper, Joe, looks like he is going to entirely skate at least on one component of his disingenuous behavior.
While testifying.
That's right.
The price is wrong, Bob.
What is that from one of those Adam Sandler movies?
The price is wrong, Bob.
What happened?
Well, this is not related to the Russian collusion fairy tale and Jim Clapper's disingenuous behavior on that.
But Clapper testified up in the hill up in 2013, Joe, and this is a particularly disturbing piece of testimony because folks, I got an email from a guy this week, and I'm not going to use his name.
It was a nice email, and I appreciate him listening, but he objected to my characterization of the Fourth Amendment evaporating.
I had said last week that the Fourth Amendment doesn't exist anymore, folks.
Clearly, when the government wants to spy on you without evidence, there are ways to do it.
There are ways.
It's just a fact.
They can unmask you.
They can produce evidence to a secret court that is not verified.
It's done.
It already happened.
So he didn't like that, which is fine.
Like I said, I read a negative commentary too, but he was a nice guy.
Now, this is one of the most disingenuous pieces of government lying to you about the spying and the Fourth Amendment evaporating.
2013, Senator Ron Wyden, who is a Democrat from Oregon, but at least has had his moments show where he's reasonably consistent on things like government spying.
Again, I don't mind that he's a Democrat.
I just didn't mind people being non-principled.
He asked Jim Clapper a question.
About the collection of metadata by the NSA.
Folks, which we know is happening.
The NSA, through a number of mechanisms, cooperative agreements, interceptions of Transatlantic and other cables, is collecting information on texts and emails.
Metadata.
We know that.
That's a fact.
Back in 2013, when this wasn't public, here's what Ron Wyden asked Jim Clapper.
It's a quote.
What I wanted to see, if you could give me a yes or no answer to the question, Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?
Rubbing his head, Clapper responded, no sir.
He then added, not wittingly.
In other words, like they didn't know they were doing it.
I remember that.
Yeah, I do.
It was a lie.
It was BS.
Clapper knew.
He absolutely knew the NSA was collecting metadata at the time.
As a senior member of the intelligence community, it is not plausibly deniable.
He had to know he was lying.
Now, this became a big controversy.
Why am I bringing this up now?
Because conveniently, the statute of limitations on this runs out this week.
It's over, he's not gonna, nothing's gonna happen!
You know, you may say, oh well, what do you want, you know, people lie to Congress all the time.
Folks, I get it, I understand, but...
The government has no problem making an example out of you.
Doesn't this piss you off?
It has absolutely no problem taking Mike Flynn to court and prosecuting him for statements that didn't marry up perfectly with a transcribed, I believe, illicitly recorded phone call.
They have no problem hammering this guy.
He's now bankrupted.
He's got to sell his house.
They have no problem at all.
But God forbid we make an example out of someone in government who knowingly lies about one of the most consequential and important, and I don't mean that in a qualitatively good way.
I think it's a bad program.
One of the most important spying programs the government's running, the collection of your metadata.
But God forbid we make an example out of him for lying.
Oh, you may say, oh, it was a mistake.
They put him on the spot.
So you know what?
Don't answer the question.
Say, Mr. Wyden, Senator Wyden, I'd rather talk about this in a closed setting.
That's not what he said!
He lied!
He lied, he said no!
And then he doubles down, it was not wittingly!
Well, it was unwitting, the NSA was accidentally collecting information.
It was a lie!
This is what people in government, you know, the bow tie wearing foie gras crowd in government, the cocktail party crew, this is what they don't get.
They're upset that America's distrust of the intelligence community and government is growing.
They're upset that American distrust of the media is growing.
Yet stuff like this doesn't help.
When does someone in government finally pay the piper for mistakes that have impacted us?
You're spying on all of us and then you're lying about it?
Joe, it never ends.
What's going to happen to Lois Lerner?
Probably nothing.
That, and by the way, it's Monday, so I don't want to hammer you with too much, you know, negative stuff.
I do, because you may say, well, Dan, now, you know, last week you were saying, be patient.
The Sessions thing is working out.
I think people are going to get prosecuted.
I do, I do, I do.
I'm just trying to temper it with some bad news as well.
Clapper's obviously not going to be prosecuted for any of this.
Nope.
Lois Lerner may in fact skate.
And the Benghazi thing, those four guys, those four patriots are dead.
And I don't think there's going to be a price to pay for that.
I do think, however, that the Sessions case, and just so you understand the marker and the difference here, the Sessions case against FISA abuse and the spying on and the framing of the Donald Trump team, the reason I believe this is different, I described a lot of it in last week's show, Sessions has already given indicators things are happening.
I've appointed someone from the outside.
He's from outside DC.
He's been looking at this.
He's conveniently been looking at it, and the timing is right around the time false statements were made.
There's something going on here behind the scenes.
I believe Sessions is in- I may be wrong, and if I'm wrong, I will correct myself.
I give you my word.
Accuracy, I pride myself on it, okay?
I think, folks, Sessions is protecting... How do I say this?
I'm a little hesitant, Joe.
I don't want to say this the wrong way.
I think Sessions is protecting Trump from himself.
Trump, I think he's done a good job.
You obviously know where I've disagreed with him, based on your feedback and some former shows.
But Trump is not a politician.
He's an outsider.
It's his greatest asset, but sometimes it's a flaw dealing with the machinery of DC.
I don't think he's familiar with how this works.
In order to protect him from an obstruction of justice charge in a case that is likely going to prosecute some of Trump's political opponents, Joe, Telling Trump and advising Trump about what's going on in this case.
I think they're afraid he may tweet about it or may talk about it publicly which would invite an obstruction of justice charge.
That's the reason I think Sessions has got a zipper on his mouth right now.
Silence is golden.
Silence is absolutely golden.
He understands this could be a...
I love Trump's off-the-cuff nature.
I do.
And I'm not knocking it.
I'm just saying sometimes you have to be protected from yourself.
Sessions knows what's going on behind the scenes.
I don't think Trump is read in on the entire process.
And I think that's a good thing.
Because I think it's the only way to make the people guilty of this framing and spying operation pay you in the court system and the legal system for what they did.
Does that make sense?
I hope it does because I really, I've been bothered by this.
Everybody's, you know, on sessions right now, but just give the guy to the end of March.
That's all I'm asking.
And we should see some movement on this.
All right.
One final story for the day, which got under my skin.
If you saw me on Fox and Friends this morning, you saw me discuss it.
Did you hear the story, Joe, about the Oakland coffee shop that is now refusing to serve cops?
Yes.
Now, if you watch my—and by the way, thank you to everyone for tuning into my new NRA TV show.
It's free.
It's available at NRATV.com.
It's on Roku.
You check it out.
It's at 5.30 Eastern Time today and every weekday.
It's half hour, 5.30 to 6, 5.30 p.m.
Eastern.
I have a segment on the show I do called Liberals vs. Liberals, where I play video of liberals.
Debating themselves.
It's fun.
People seem to really like it because it shows the hypocrisy and stupidity in many cases of liberals who can't seem to take a principled position on anything.
And I said on the show, on Friday's show at NRA TV, that you tell me an issue and I'll tell you what the liberals have taken opposing positions on it.
Well, what's fascinating about this Oakland coffee shop case is you've seen very few liberals, Joe, speaking out about this.
Saying, all right, this is a bridge too far.
There's an Oakland coffee shop that is now refusing to serve cops.
They're saying, well, you know, we don't want cops in here.
Our community feels unsafe around them.
I'm not making that up.
If that sounds dumb, it's because it is, okay?
Now, folks, I'm a free speech, Bill of Rights, constitutional advocate.
You don't want to serve cops?
You're a moron.
Or as I called you on Fox this morning, you're a total disgrace to the country.
You're a national embarrassment.
But that's your business!
Really!
I was a former cop.
I know that makes a lot of people uncomfortable.
You don't want to serve cops?
I would never!
I wouldn't give you a penny of my money!
Matter of fact, I don't even like wasting my time on you now.
I'm just trying to point out that again, liberals cannot seem to stick to principles.
The reason many of them, if you follow some of the Twitter traffic, Joe, have been quiet on this, is they'll tell you on one hand, Joe, well, it's a private business.
They can do what they want.
They can serve who they want to serve.
We agree.
We absolutely agree.
Point stipulated.
But what's funny is when it came to the Oregon Baker, the family, was it Melissa's Sweetcakes?
That was asked to produce a a wedding cake for a gay wedding who said listen we're Christian we don't we don't do uh gay wedding cakes.
All of a sudden they had to be bankrupted.
They were literally put out of business.
I think the guy works for the sanitation department now.
They had to shut their business down.
Liberals Doubled down and said, Joe, their premise there.
So the principle with the cops, just to be clear, was, hey man, it's a private business, they can do what they want.
But when it came to Melissa Sweetcake's private business, here was their principle, Joe.
Principle.
I'm using air quotes.
You're in the public sphere, man.
You're serving the public.
You need to serve everybody.
Wait.
Wait, what?
What is it?
What is your guide?
The whole idea of a principle is that it's immovable.
It's a lodestar.
It's a guiding light.
It goes to show you the absolute hypocrisy and foolishness of the modern liberal.
The next time they bring up to you the gay baker case, the gay cake and the gay baker case, I'm sorry, the gay cake, the gay wedding baker case in Oregon or any of those cases, bring up the Oakland case and say, what is it?
Wait, I don't understand.
So it's okay to discriminate against a guy or a woman you've never met in your life because they have a police uniform on.
They could be the Mother Teresa of modern law enforcement.
Don't serve them.
Kick them out.
Humiliate them and embarrass them and make them go elsewhere.
But for a company that says, you know what?
We don't do gay wedding cakes.
Whether it's... Listen, if I was in... I'd make a cake forever.
I don't... You know what?
It's... Whatever.
It's not my thing.
But just be consistent!
Be consistent!
I don't say it's not my thing.
I mean, I'm a Christian.
I obviously believe in the tenets of the... But for this guy and this woman, unfortunately, they've been irreparably harmed by this.
Because these people on the left... That's frustrating.
You understand they're never going to give up.
I said to my wife last night, I was sitting there and I was watching a... One final thought on this.
I was watching a Microsoft commercial and they had Common, I think he's a rap artist and an actor, spoken word or whatever they call it.
Common was just on the Academy Awards, the Oscars, bashing the NRA.
They're on the other side of God.
But Microsoft uses them as a spokesperson because, again, it sets up the principle I've talked about on the show over and over.
That the default position in the culture wars right now is that anything on the left is OK.
Anything on the right is inherently extremist and outcast.
If you were to say anything positive about the NRA, you'd probably not be given the same deal.
But Microsoft doesn't mind at all that Common speaks out against the NRA and against Trump because that's the default position.
I'm telling you, the way to fight back against this is going to be someday, there is going to be some form of a conservative, alternative economy that develops, Joe.
I'm sorry, I mean, one final thought, okay?
Roger Ailes, before he was, he's now deceased, but Roger Ailes gave a speech once when he was still running Fox at the Secret Service Training Center.
He went down there, he had a connection to a guy who knew a guy, and it was interesting because in the speech, When he first proposed Fox News, someone had asked him, like, this is a crazy idea, you know, who are you marketing this to?
And he was funny.
His reply was like, well, you know, 50% of America that considers himself conservative or reasonably moderately Republican, right?
Folks, that's what's going to happen in the economy now.
As all these companies and all these, you know, the left, as they target these companies, they target us, they try to bankrupt people, they try to bankrupt sponsors and all this stuff.
You are going to see eventually the explosion of an alternative economy in places.
You're going to see, you know, Amazon wants to use, you know, liberal messaging or whatever it may be in their ads.
You're going to see a company called whatever.
Glamazon that's going to come out and be their competitor and say, hey, you know what?
This is an open space for conservatives.
The minute they can do that with enough financial backing like Fox News did, you're going to see the fall of these companies just like you saw for CNN, MSNBC, and other legacy media types.
It's only a matter of time, folks.
Only a matter of time.
All right, thanks again for tuning in.
Please check out the articles I have today in the show notes.
They're really good at Bongino.com.
If you subscribe to my email list, I will email them to you.
Thanks a lot, folks.
I will see you all tomorrow.
You just heard the Dan Bongino Show.
Get more of Dan online anytime at conservativereview.com.
