In this episode I address the astonishing new revelations about the spying scheme on the Trump team. I address what the FBI and the DOJ knew, and when they knew it. The timing is critical. I also address President Trump cancelling Nancy Pelosi’s trip. Finally, I address the 2020 Democrat presidential field and their “race to the bottom.”News Picks:
Nancy Pelosi tried to play games with President Trump, that was a big mistake.
A top Democrat now admits that border walls work.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez should lead by example and give up 70% of her salary to the government.
Discredited liar Michael Cohen is making new allegations against Donald Trump.
This August, 2017 piece regarding the Manafort raid looks awfully suspicious now.
This liberal judge’s immigration decision will infuriate you.
Copyright Dan Bongino all rights reserved.
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Get ready to hear the truth about America on a show that's not immune to the facts with your host, Dan Bongino.
All right, welcome to the Dan Bongino Show.
Producer Joe, how are you today?
Man, I'm doing well.
Heck of a news day, huh?
Yeah, another one.
If you liked yesterday's show, which did bonkers numbers for us, did very well, was spread around the internet, today's show will be even better.
I promise you it'll tie it up and make it even simpler for you to understand.
So don't go anywhere.
I also want to talk about Nancy Pelosi trying to out-troll President Trump, which was a catastrophically bad move.
Don't play ball with this guy.
Do not play ball with this guy.
You are going to lose and lose badly, like Speaker Pelosi did yesterday.
So don't go anywhere.
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Okay.
Before we get to how this scandal is just exploding in live time yesterday, and it's all starting to come out now based on leaked testimony from Capitol Hill and Bruce Ohr, I want to get to some other stuff first, just quickly here.
So yesterday, in case you missed it, I have a story in the show notes about it at Bongino.com.
If you join my email list, you can get these stories every day.
So, Nancy Pelosi tried to pull a fast one on President Trump this week, Joe.
You may not be able to come to the State of the Union to give the State of the Union address, Mr. Trump, because the government shut down and the Secret Service may not be able to properly conduct the security plan because they've been working without pay.
I know people in the Secret Service.
I worked there.
I talked about this on Monday, not to beat a dead horse.
Pelosi made it up.
She made up the whole story.
It will have absolutely zero impact on the security plan.
The Secret Service agents are not mercenaries.
They're not sitting there going, wait, a paycheck's delayed?
We're just going to let the president get hurt on this trip.
If you believe that of the Secret Service, Pelosi needs to find a new job rather than being Speaker of the House.
If she has that little faith in the government she claims to champion, maybe she needs to find a new line of work and secondly, Joe, find a new ideology.
The government's gonna cure all our problems, right?
Government's gonna cure all our problems, but if the Secret Service misses a paycheck and they're the representatives of government, they're gonna let the whole thing collapse.
What a dopey thing to say.
So of course he tries to get into a fight with President Trump, who's having none of it, and Nancy Pelosi thought it would be a good idea during a shutdown, I don't know why, to take one of these CODELs.
CODEL is an acronym, excuse me, an abbreviation for Congressional Delegation Trip.
Overseas to a number of different places, Afghanistan and Brussels.
She thought it would be a good idea to take one of these trips with a bunch of her congressional staff and representatives right in the middle of a government shutdown using the same military and security assets that she claims were in jeopardy for the State of the Union Address.
How Pelosi thought Trump was going to let this happen, Joe, is beyond me.
She thinks she's playing ball with a rookie here.
So what did President Trump do yesterday?
President Trump promptly fires off a letter to Pelosi because he is the Commander-in-Chief.
Nancy Pelosi is not.
Trump, Commander-in-Chief?
Nancy Pelosi, not.
Trump, Commander-in-Chief?
Nancy Pelosi, not Commander-in-Chief.
Trump orders the military, we will not be flying overseas during a government shutdown.
Nancy Pelosi says security reasons?
Well, security reasons apply there too.
Remember the soup guy from Seinfeld?
No soup for you.
No trip for you, Nance.
Bus turns around, they head back.
You want to play ball?
It's ball time.
You want to play ball?
We're all ready.
It's game time now.
Ladies and gentlemen, the new rules are in effect.
And for any of you out there under the illusion, I heard a number of cable news commentators yesterday, Trump should have taken the high ground.
The high ground?
The high ground?
Nancy Pelosi just crapped all over the Secret Service, the most dedicated men and women I ever worked with in my entire life, to win a cheap political point, got completely destroyed and decimated on it as the Secret Service and DHS came out and called her for lying, called her out on it.
And we're supposed to take the high ground?
The high ground's over, folks.
There's no more high ground.
Okay?
As I said last night in a Fox hit, Robert's rules of order are over.
The Democrats have committed themselves to a new emotional state of being that is singularly focused on destroying the presidency of Donald Trump and destroying his family and his credibility in the process.
That is all they care about.
High ground?
We're dealing with a bunch of swamp rodents in a cesspool-infested D.C.
swamp.
There is no high ground left.
High ground?
Let me give you just an analogy on this.
It's like being in a boxing match, I've said this repeatedly, where the other guy has attached razor blades and glass using honey and stickums to the outside of his 8-ounce MMA gloves that he's punching you in the face with, and you're looking at the referee going, the high ground?
What about the high ground?
The high ground say no cheap shots, no kidney punches as you're bleeding to death in the ring.
Do you understand the fight we're in?
We need a rabbit puncher.
We need a kidney puncher.
We need a guy willing to take off the gloves right now.
Get us back to the high ground, and the high ground is borders, economic liberty, the Constitutional Republic, the defense of the Bill of Rights.
We need to get back to that.
We are nowhere near that now.
We're dealing with a massive spying scandal, a government shutdown because the Democrats want open borders, Ocasio-Cortez and Julian Castro calling for 70% and 90% tax rates on the most successful people in our society, which would essentially destroy any economic productivity we have left.
And you want to take some kind of a high ground?
A high ground in what?
The Democrats destroyed the high ground.
I keep hearing these calls for an adult in the room.
Adult?
We tried this routine.
We tried this with President Bush and us.
We got steamrolled by the media.
President Bush was accused of being a Nazi and a warmonger.
We tried this running Mitt Romney and the gentlemanly type.
He was accused of killing old women with cancer.
You want the high ground?
Hard pass.
Give me a break.
You forfeited the high ground a long time ago.
The butt-kissing time is over.
Facts and reason went out the window a long time ago.
You need more evidence of this?
Read my show notes today.
I have another report at bongino.com.
Steny Hoyer, Joe.
Steny Hoyer, a guy you know well from Maryland, where you are.
Yeah.
I believe he represents Congressional District 5 in Maryland.
Steny Hoyer, who is a senior member of the leadership on the House and the Democrat side, was on Bret Baier's show the other day on Fox.
On Bret Baier's show, Bret Baier calls him out on the walls don't work thing, and Hoyer reluctantly admits that where the walls are up, they work!
So what are the senior leaders on the House side?
Admits!
Admits that walls work!
And yet he's fighting the very same walls and the budget process we have now and is shutting down the government to do so, and we're supposed to be arguing back with them on facts and reason when they've already acknowledged, Joe, that our facts and reason are correct?
Are we in crazy town now?
We tried facts and reason.
It didn't work.
Listen to me, folks.
This is a pure political street fight now.
Nothing more.
We are fighting guys with razor blades and glass on their gloves.
You want to fight back using Robert's Rules of Order?
Using the what?
The fighting Irish Notre Dame guy fighting?
Are you serious?
This is a political street fight that requires a political street fighter.
Thank God we've got Donald Trump in there who understands that the rules of order went out the window a long time ago and is willing to fight back.
And good for him for pulling this flight, as the commander-in-chief of our armed services, saying no flight for you.
I'm sorry all these, you know, rhino Republicans out there and soft moderates.
People, you're not ready for this.
You're not ready for the fight.
Joe, they're not ready.
You're not ready for this fight.
You still think we're fighting with 20-ounce clubs and a sparring match in headgear.
It's over.
Those days are over.
The Democrat Party has lurched into tyrannical, far-radical leftism.
There is no turning back anytime soon with traditional old rules of order.
They're dead.
The new rules are in effect.
We must win and they must lose.
We cannot co-exist at the same time.
The Trump presidency cannot co-exist with a group of people who insist on the destruction of the republic, wiping out of the Fourth Amendment, spying on their political opponents, confiscating more of our money, and impeaching a duly elected president.
Those ideas cannot co-exist anymore.
The time for butt kissing is over.
It's game time now.
Get your game faces on.
We're in for a long fight here.
I'm ready for it.
You need to be too.
Yeah, there may be longer lines at TSA.
Yeah, we may have to find a way to clean up some garbage in DC.
We may have to find a way to find some efficiencies in the government to get some people paid who need to be in there.
But get ready for a long fight.
Trump's ready.
I'm ready.
You need to be ready, too.
We cannot lose.
New rules are in effect.
We win.
You lose.
We cannot coexist here.
You must lose this fight if you are on the other side.
Because you winning involves the destruction of the republic as we know it.
Not gonna happen.
It's getting worse, folks.
Topic number two today is 2020 presidential field.
I promise I'm gonna get to the Spygate stuff in a minute, but this is important.
People are starting to announce, both men and women, their runs for the 2020 presidential race against Donald Trump.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is turning into a race to the bottom of ideas.
The problem with the liberals now is they've been exposed.
In the Trump era, it has engendered this far-left, radical leftist base.
That's where the volunteers and that's where the money are.
The entire Democrat party has not only lurched left, has lurched far left.
We are now openly talking about things on the Democrat side, the destruction of ICE, open borders, economic tax rates upward of 90% for our most successful citizens.
These are destructive ideas that cannot coexist with the republic as we know it now.
If these open borders ideas, the destruction of our military, the wiping out of ice, the confiscating of massive amounts of money in our economy to give to a government that's going to flush it down a toilet bowl happen, you don't happen then.
Your kids' economic prosperity and everything else goes down the tubes.
It is a pure race to the bottom.
Now, To break up the monotony and the macabre nature of the show so far.
It reminded me, I was talking to my wife last night, but Paula's on the show now, folks, in case you don't know it.
She's actually in the background.
I can hear this whole show.
So, we'll have her chime in some point in the future.
We're still working on all the video stuff.
I was talking to my wife in the kitchen, I said, you know, this reminds me, listening to Julian Castro and Kirsten Gillibrand, Elizabeth Warren, all of them running on these far-left radical principles now.
You know, Kirsten Gillibrand, who painted herself as a former New York Congresswoman, now New York Senator, on the federal side, now running for President, opening an exploratory committee, painted herself in a run for Congress in upstate New York as a moderate in defense of the Second Amendment.
You know, a blue dog Democrat has now gone radically far left and has joined the open borders crowd and everyone else because she sees that's where the money is and that's where the support is.
You are going to see this race to the bottom.
The Democrats are going to leapfrog each other during this primary for more and more radical ideas and it reminded me of a segment we covered, Joe, I don't know, what was it, about a year ago?
Yeah, something like that.
Maybe less.
Yeah, about a year or so.
So I want to play this clip from a movie some of you may have seen and some of you may have not, but the idiocy of these liberal far-left policies that were, and I don't mean to make light of it, but it's seriously, with all of this going on, before I get to the Spygate stuff, it's Friday.
This is what this reminds me of, hearing the Democrats go, Joe, 70% tax rate for people who make 10 million?
Julian Castro, I want a 90% tax rate!
Then you're gonna see, watch, what Cory Booker will jump in later, I want 100% tax rate!
And then some other liberal radical has to go, I want 110% tax rate!
I want to take more than you even earn!
I want everything!
It reminded me of a clip from a movie, Something About Mary, that goes something like this.
I'm going to start my own company.
Really?
You want in?
Uh, I, nah, I'm not on it.
I don't really have any, you know, money or... You heard of this thing, the 8 Minute Abs?
Yeah, sure, 8 Minute Abs.
Yeah, the exercise video.
Yeah, well this is going to blow that right out of the water.
Listen to this.
7 Minute Abs.
This is the greatest cut ever.
I love that.
We covered that on this show a while ago.
Sometimes you got to regurgitate old stuff because it's that good.
This is what it's going to be.
Eight minute abs.
I got a better idea.
How about seven minutes?
And then of course the clip goes on.
We don't have a lot of time, but what is it?
Ben Stiller, Joe, after that, something about Mary goes, well, Won't someone beat you to it with six-minute abs and the guy's confused like, oh yeah!
Folks, this is what's coming!
Seven-minute abs!
The Democrat party is the seven-minute abs party.
Joe, let me give you a number of examples.
Tax rates.
Ocasio-Cortez is going to say 70%.
Castro, 90%.
As they jump in, it's going to go higher and higher.
Bernie Sanders, we want everything.
We want your kids' money in the future.
We want to tax infants now based on income they don't even have.
Then it's going to be on minimum wage, Joe.
It's going to be the fight for $15.
$15 an hour minimum wage.
Then it's going to be, well, I'll do $17.
Well, I'll do $20.
I'll do $100 an hour in minimum wage.
Then it's going to be, we don't need a wall in certain sectors.
Then it's going to be, we don't need a wall in other sectors.
Then it's going to be, let's destroy the wall we have up now.
Then it's going to be, Joe, Medicare for some, Medicare for all, then it's going to be Medicare for the entire globe!
It's going to be single-payer and, by the way, we're going to open it up to illegal immigrants too, like you're already seeing in California.
I'm telling you, the Democrats are the seven-minute abs party.
You will see the race to the stupid pit.
If there's a well of stupid, they are leapfrogging each other to fall faster down the pit.
Remember, in a vacuum, they'd all fall at the same rate.
A feather and a bowling ball in a vacuum fall at the exact same rate.
Yeah, I know most of you know that.
It's the air pressure that determines the difference.
All right?
This is a—pretend this is—the air pressure exists.
They're all going to leapfrog each other to streamline themselves, to break the air pressure, to get to the bottom of the stupid pit with dumber and dumber ideas because they are the 7-Minute Abs Party.
The Democrats are the 7-Minute Abs Party.
That is the—someone should label them that now.
Forget the donkey job.
The donkey shouldn't be their symbol.
It should be abs.
And right over the abs should say, seven minutes.
Because someone's going to beat them with the six minute abs.
And eventually it's going to be down to one minute abs.
I want a $200 an hour minimum wage.
I want Medicare for aliens that don't even come from planet Earth.
School choice?
We don't want school choice anywhere!
Matter of fact, I want indoctrination factories with known communists teaching our kids.
You laugh!
Like this, I'm telling you, these people have gone so radically far left.
This is coming next.
Oh, man.
All right.
Well, I want to get to this.
If you liked yesterday's show, I've got some, I actually missed some stuff on yesterday's show about some key dates because it was so stacked that I want to cover the rest of it today.
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All right, getting back to this.
Ladies and gentlemen, yesterday we spoke about cleanup on aisle four.
How around this July 27, 2017 date, We have all of this civil war blowing up on the Spygate side, the cover-up side, and the Trump administration side, where people are getting very concerned.
All of these things happen on the 20th.
I'm just going to cover quickly what I covered yesterday because I forgot one.
In my effort to get all the information out to you, I left out a key event that happens on July 27th of 2017.
I also, and thanks to a listener for reminding me, I also forgot to tell you that the Circa piece I addressed yesterday was written by John Solomon and Sarah Carter.
Joe, what do I say about John Solomon all the time?
He knows everything.
He knows the whole story.
It's clear as day.
So, July 27, 2017.
This is the day the spark is lit on this whole scandal falling apart.
That is the day the Bob Mueller Special Counsel is notified that they have the texts of the lead investigators involved in the Donald Trump spying scandal.
Peter Stroke has been texting his girlfriend Lisa Page.
That's the day Mueller finds out about these texts.
The texts are devastating.
Oconus Law is talking about, in other words, People outside of the continental United States luring people in, talking about meetings in London, talking about how much they hate Trump supporters, how Trump should lose a million to nothing, or a hundred million to nothing.
The texts are devastating.
Mueller must be reading these going, oh my gosh, this is my lead investigator in the case against Donald Trump, and the IG, the Inspector General, has these texts now.
Mueller's team panics.
All of this stuff happens on July, so Mueller gets it July 27, 2017.
He probably gets wind of it a few days earlier.
That's the same day the House GOP calls for a second special counsel to investigate Hillary Clinton, Comey, and Lynch.
Clearly, someone on the GOP side, the House GOP side, investigating this, has gotten wind of these texts as well and understands that the entire operation to spy on Donald Trump that's been going on now for well over a year is exposed and laid out in these texts between the lead investigator, Stroke, and his girlfriend, Lisa Page.
Big trouble.
Third, that's the day Papadopoulos is arrested in a panic arrest at the airport in Dulles in what appears to be a PC arrest which is very unusual.
Something happens that day.
It's clear Mueller's team panics.
They realize their entire investigation into Donald Trump, who they think they've got lock, stock, and two smoking barrels, Joe.
Are we crystal clear on this?
Is about to be exposed in a series of texts where the lead investigator says all kinds of nasty stuff and exposes the whole spying scandal.
That is also the day the Circa report Written by John Solomon, forgive me for not mentioning that, who knows this whole story.
I've said that from the beginning.
A circle reports services that Jim Baker, one of the lead FBI lawyers, advising Jim Comey throughout this case, is being investigated for criminal leaks.
This all happens on July 27th.
How did we all miss this?
The answer is we didn't.
The media did.
Well, something else happened, Joe, on, well, not July 27th, but on July 26th, the day before.
Gee, what happened on July 26th?
Which says to me that Mueller had gotten wind of this.
Either a couple days prior, a day prior, someone feeds to Mueller.
It appears clear at this point, Joe, that these texts are going to come out, and this operation to spy on Donald Trump is going to be exposed.
Clean up, all four!
We need to silence everyone.
Gary Oldman and now is that movie where we get everyone?
Everyone!
Mueller needs everybody to shut up.
These texts are gonna come out.
He needs this.
Mueller's job is to keep the attention on Donald Trump And to protect the integrity of the Department of Justice, whatever integrity they have left, by making this all go away and shutting everyone up.
Joe, what happens July 26th in the early morning?
There's a house that's raided.
Whose house is it?
Paul Manafort!
A key central figure in the hoax dossier that was used by the Bureau to get a false FISA warrant.
His house is raided the morning of July 26th, the day before.
So Papadopoulos is locked up, then all of these people are locked up and shut up at the same time.
Now, let me read to you a cut from a piece I have from The Hill that is up in the- it's an older piece.
But it's worth reading.
Because now this makes sense, Joe.
Why the rush to hit Manafort's house?
Right around the time the texts are released.
How is no one putting this together, by the way?
From the piece.
FBI agents executed a search warrant at one of Mr. Manafort's residences, the spokesperson said.
Mr. Manafort has consistently cooperated with law enforcement and other inquiries and did so on this occasion as well.
Joe, were you a federal agent at any point?
No, I was not, Dan.
Okay, I'm not messing with you here.
I was, and I bring that up because let me just ask you a common sense question because I've actually done these types of raids.
Okay.
When you have a cooperator who they acknowledge, the spokesperson already acknowledges, is cooperating with the investigation.
Meaning you probably want to work out some kind of symbiotic relationship and keep both sides happy, right?
You think it's a good idea to hit his house at like 5 or 6 o'clock in the morning and shuffle his wife out of bed to upset him?
You think that's a good idea?
Nah, I think you gotta screw things up real good.
You're right, Joe.
And Joe is not a federal agent.
He doesn't need to be.
Because Joe has half a brain.
Half.
Why the rush to hit this guy's house the morning of July 26 conveniently in the same time window these texts are exposing the entire operation on Trump?
Oh, it goes on.
Clearly, at this point, they need to shut Manafort down.
Federal agents arrived at Manafort's home.
Keep in mind, folks, he's cooperating without warning and departed with records, according to the Post.
Oh, this is where it gets good, Joe.
This is where it gets just delicious.
Oh, it gets better.
Read this piece.
It'll all make sense to you now.
The raid happened the day after Manafort had a meeting with the staff for the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is also investigating Russia.
Holy crikeys.
The Senate Intelligence Committee.
The same committee Mark Warner, Dianne Feinstein, and her staffer Dan Jones, who later leaves that committee to continue to work with Fusion GPS after the election to try to prove the dossier, which is false, is true.
Takes money, this guy Dan Jones, to try to prove the authenticity of this fake dossier.
This very same committee, Manafort talks to them the day before, the day later his house gets raided, conveniently at the same time these text messages come out?
Folks, what's going on here?
Silence everyone.
These texts come out, they realize their entire investigation is garbage.
Manafort was a key player in the hoax dossier.
According to the dossier, Manafort and Cohen are the ones who organized the Trump team effort to get the hacked Hillary emails from the Russians in an effort to influence the election.
That is the key component of the dossier.
Who is Manafort's guy according to the dossier that he's using as a back channel to the Russians?
Who is it?
Think, folks.
Who's Manafort's guy in the dossier?
Carter Page.
Carter Page, the guy the FBI got a FISA warrant against, according to the dossier.
That was fake.
Page has as wholeheartedly disavowed any knowledge of working with Manafort on any of this.
You now see why Manafort had to be shut down?
Now think, Joe, think.
I know you got this in your head right now.
You may be saying, well, why wasn't Page arrested then?
Why wasn't Page shut down too?
Because they couldn't find anything on Page.
They had no crime to charge Page with at all.
Now do you see the effort to shut down Manafort for a tax case that had nothing to do with collusion at all?
They would have shut down Page, but they couldn't.
They had nothing on Page.
Walk me through this, folks.
I'll walk you through it.
We'll walk together.
We'll grasp hands and walk down this path.
We'll find Oz eventually.
Here we go.
Two people are key central players in this.
Remember, it is nothing more than an Obama administration operation to use the FBI and the intelligence community to spy on the Trump team.
That is it!
All of the stuff they did to get there.
The fake information they use, the fake sources, the fake dossier are nothing more than deranged, lunatic-like efforts to fabricate information as an excuse to spy on the Trump team.
The collusion, hoax, all of this stuff is ex post facto nonsense because they wanted initially to spy on the Trump team and they figured they'd just develop evidence later.
So there are two players in this, Papadopoulos and Manafort.
Papadopoulos, they show some interest in, clearly as far back as when he's first announced as a foreign policy advisor, where this meeting with Ms.
Sood happens that is clearly being monitored by the intelligence community.
Follow me.
April.
Back in April 2016, Papadopoulos, right around that time, is announced as a foreign policy member of the Trump team.
Somebody at the FBI and the IC gets wind of this.
They're looking to spy on the Trump team.
They're already doing it through unmasking, most likely.
And cracks into the NSA database.
But they need something, Joe, to cover their tracks.
They need to develop... Remember, target the guy, develop the evidence later.
The exact opposite of what a democracy's supposed to do.
Yeah.
So what do they do?
They figure Papadopoulos is young and naive.
They'll target him.
This meeting with this guy Mifsud, this Maltese professor, is clearly a setup where this Maltese professor connected to Western intelligence assets.
In other words, friendly intelligence assets to the United States.
He meets with him and Mifsud plants this seed about Russian emails.
According to the allegations.
Missud also introduces Papadopoulos to this Russian MFA connection according to the charging documents, who I'm starting to wonder may have been a source for the IC2.
This meeting is clearly a setup designed to rope in Papadopoulos.
What's the problem with this, Joe?
It doesn't go anywhere.
As I said yesterday, Papadopoulos does not, in fact, email the Trump team and say, let's hack into Hillary's emails.
Nowhere to go.
There's nowhere to go!
They try to set up Papadopoulos and it doesn't work!
Do you understand now on July 27th when all of this is exposed because it's likely in all the texts and some of them that are missing?
That they had to shut Papadopoulos down and lock him up?
Now, April 2016, they're pursuing multiple vehicles to spy on the Trump team.
They're trying to set up Papadopoulos.
It fails.
They go to Plan B, Joe.
Plan B is clearly Christopher Steele and the dossier.
They've worked with Steele before the FBI.
They know him from the FIFA case, the Soccer Association.
They go to Steele.
Bruce Ohr is working with Steele.
He meets with him in July.
Ohr then passes the information.
To the FBI in July of 2016.
Hey guys, maybe that Papadopoulos thing that's not working out.
Joe, are you tracking me right here?
Yeah.
We've got another plan.
Plan B. Yeah.
We've got this old source we used to use, this British spy, Christopher Steele.
He's working for Hillary and he's talking to Bruce Ohr.
Now I think we have enough to start a formal investigation.
Bruce Ohr now tells Andrew Weissman at the Department of Justice, by the way, on the special counsel now, investigating Donald Trump outrageously.
Bruce Ohr tells Weissman, tells Weissman in this briefing in August at the DOJ, a guy on the special counsel now, Weissman, tells him that this is in fact a Hillary source paid by Hillary to gin up information on Trump and they still run with it anyway.
Oh, Adam Schiff said none of that happened though, Joe.
Adam Schiff's letter said, don't worry, the FBI didn't know about the dossier until September.
No, no, no.
Bruce Ohr briefs Andrew Weissman, Andy McCabe at the FBI, in August.
They've got a plan B, Joe!
Papa D didn't work out.
We tried to set him up, but he's not playing ball with this Russian collusion thing.
Let's go to the dossier.
Joe, what's the problem with the dossier?
It's no good!
It's no good!
How do they know it's no good?
Because by September they've been engaged in a full-blown operation to target Manafort and Page.
There's likely more Fizes out there, folks.
Don't be surprised when it becomes public.
Page is supposedly working hand-in-hand with Manafort to collude with the Russians about getting these emails.
It's not true!
By September, October, November, because they're up on a wire on this FISA on Page, they're figuring out this whole thing is BS!
Now the Papadopoulos thing doesn't work out.
But they still think it's an insurance policy.
Remember the August text, Joe, right after the meeting between Stroke and Page about an insurance policy.
They still think they can go back to the well to Papadopoulos later.
Right, right.
Because they've got this Downer thing where he met with Alexander Downer in London and allegedly mentioned something about the emails or dirt, which they both deny.
Right, right.
So they still think they've got an insurance policy in case this dossier doesn't work out.
But Joe, none of it's working out because they're probably listening in on Papadopoulos too.
And nobody is playing ball with this hacked email we're colluding with the Russians to get them scheme at all.
Joe, can you please queue up the most important cut you will hear regarding this case ever?
We have played this thing multiple times.
It's a little over a minute and a half.
It is the most important piece of sound you will hear in this entire episode.
This is Jim Comey, FBI director, testifying up on Capitol Hill in March of 2017.
Eight months after they opened up the investigation in July of 2016 against Donald Trump, eight months after, and he's asked by a junior member of Congress from New York, Elise Stefanik, who's a Republican, He has asked why he ignored the previous practice of notifying Congress quarterly, for Democrats that means every three months, about sensitive investigations, Joe, and specifically he's asked by Representative Stefanik why he never came up to the Hill to notify, according to procedures, Congress about an ongoing investigation into Donald Trump.
He's supposed to notify them every three months.
He doesn't notify them until March, eight months after the investigation starts.
Hold on before I play this.
Why, Joe?
It's now clear.
Plan A was Papadopoulos.
He refuses to play ball.
They've got a little bit on him.
They think they've got this to him talking about emails to Downer.
They'll use it as an insurance policy.
They go to plan B. We're all in on this dossier.
They get up on a wire.
The dossier turns out to be fake.
They have no corroborating evidence at all.
But they've already gone into a FISA court.
Why does Jim Comey not notify Congress?
About the existence of this investigation?
Because it's falling apart in front of his very eyes and he knows it.
And they already have a paper trail, Joe.
They're already knee-deep in the FISA court and the Woods procedure where they were supposed to verify this.
Their signatures are on things.
Comey signed off on the FISA warrant.
He's begging for time.
That's a good question.
Congressional leadership...
Sometime recently, they were briefed on the nature of the investigation in some detail, as I said.
Obviously, the Department of Justice has been aware of it all along.
The DNI, I don't know what the DNI's knowledge of it was because we didn't have a DNI until Mr. Coates took office, and I briefed him his first morning in office.
So just to drill down on this, if the open investigation began in July and the briefing of congressional leadership only occurred recently, why was there no notification prior to the recent, the past month?
I think our decision was it was a matter of such sensitivity that we wouldn't include it in the quarterly briefings.
So when you state our decision, is that your decision?
Is that usually your decision what gets briefed in those quarterly updates?
No, it's usually the decision of the head of our counterintelligence division.
And just, uh, again, to get the detailed, uh, on the record, why was the decision made not to brief, uh, senior congressional leadership until recently when the investigation had been open since July?
Um, a very serious investigation.
Why was that decision made to wait months?
Because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Oh, what?
That is the most important piece of sound you will hear anywhere, anywhere in this, and I address this, by the way, in thorough detail in my book.
Spygate.
Thorough detail.
This meeting, this Capitol Hill briefing is covered extensively.
Do you understand how important this is?
Let's pick apart what he said.
He refuses to notify Congress according to quarterly briefings.
It's clear as day why now.
Plan A, Papadopoulos fell apart.
How do we know Plan A, trying to set up Papadopoulos as an intermediary in this conversation about Russian emails with Hillary?
How do we know it fell apart, Joe?
Follow me here.
Listen to yesterday's show if you missed it.
Because it's March of 2017, Joe, when this is happening.
The FBI's already gone back to Papadopoulos in January of 2017.
Specifically, January 27th, where I believe Papadopoulos agrees to cooperate in the case.
Because it says in his charging documents, about the February meeting, that he reiterated his desire to cooperate with the FBI.
Meaning, he iterated it at the first meeting.
Papa D, January 27th, is led to believe in this FBI meeting, Joe.
Remember, he was the initial plan A, but it was weak.
Right.
All they had is this dopey meeting with Alexander Downer that they now both deny they discussed emails on.
Right.
Papadopoulos says, yeah, sure, I'll cooperate, likely, on January 27th.
Papadopoulos finds out shortly after that they have no interest in cooperation at all.
They want to flip him as a source against the Trump team.
Papadopoulos is probably under the impression he's working to lock up some Russian spies, Joe.
I don't want to speak for George, but he probably thinks, yeah, sure, I'll help you out with that, no problem at all.
What George doesn't realize is George is the insurance policy, not the Russians.
The FBI already knows this Russian email story is crap.
They want him roped in.
He figures it out.
He figures out that this Mifsud meeting was a setup.
That Mifsud is likely a western intelligence source that's been working against him as part of an intelligence community plot to rope Papadopoulos into a Russian collusion email scheme.
Papadopoulos panics, gets rid of his cell phone, deletes his Facebook page, the FBI sees what's going on, rushes back to meet him on February 16th, where he allegedly reiterates his desire to cooperate with the FBI, but Papadopoulos figures out now he's not over for dinner, he's on the menu!
That's when the FBI storms out because they likely realize Papadopoulos has become hip to the plan!
They're trying to flip him against Trump!
He's the insurance policy!
He's it!
He doesn't know this!
He thinks Joey's working against the Russians!
You understand what I'm saying?
Papadopoulos thinks the FBI wants him to nail Russians!
There are no Russians to nail!
They want to nail Trump!
He figures it out!
They figured this out in February!
This is when they panic.
They panic because they're like, guys, this guy's not going to play ball.
He figured out we're not looking for Russians.
There are no Russians here that dealt with the Trump team.
He figured out that he's on the menu.
We want him to cooperate against Trump.
Now they don't know what to do!
Trump is the president, Joe!
It's February!
By March, they figure out they've been hiding this thing since July of 2016, as you just heard in the clip.
They're going to have to, at some point, brief Congress, because they're all going to be exposed!
So Comey sucks it down, goes up there, and finally figures out, I'm going to have to say something.
He finally admits that this investigation exists, breaking procedures, not notifying Congress, but what he says is key!
When asked, Joe, why he doesn't notify Congress, he says it's due to the sensitivity of the matter.
That's the precise reason they notify Congress, because of sensitive investigations.
Yeah.
But there's a part two to that, Joe.
When Representative Stefanik asks him who told him not to brief Congress, he says something very key.
He says, my director of counterintelligence.
Who was that person, folks?
It was Bill Pricestep.
Who is Bill Pricestep?
He was Peter Stroke, the lead investigator who's texting his girlfriend about how they want to nail Trump and texting his girlfriend about all the machinations and plots that went on with Papadopoulos and others.
That's his boss, Price Steps, Peter Strokes' boss.
Price Step has to know about this.
Price Step probably knows Strokes been corrupted.
So he tells Comey, don't say anything.
Don't say anything.
Now you may say, folks, why delay it?
Sooner or later they're going to have to come clean.
No, no.
That's not what they thought.
They thought sooner or later, do all of this FISA warrants.
And remember, they still had active FISAs.
They're still listening in through the two hop rule to Carter Page and likely the entire Trump team.
They're hoping and praying, Joe, that an email is going to surface between Trump and Putin.
Hey, you got those emails?
Nothing's happening.
The dossier stories flop.
The dossier can't be verified.
Carter Page, their story that he was connected to Manafort flopped.
On Manafort, all they have is tax charges.
They have nothing else.
Their Papadopoulos setup didn't work.
All they have is this flimsy meeting with Downer.
They have no email saying, Hey, Mr. Trump, it's George Papadopoulos.
The Russians have emails.
Let's go get them.
They've got nothing.
The dossier is collapsing.
It's entirely falling apart.
They panic.
They have to notify Congress.
Trump is president now.
Things are being discovered.
They're going to be declassified.
Trump knows what's going on.
Comey has no choice.
Comey's fired.
The panic gets worse.
Finally, the IG comes out on game day, July 27th, 2017, tells the Mueller team, my guess, folks, is somebody, whether it's the IG himself, Joe, Or one of his surrogates either leaks to Mueller or tells Bob Mueller straight to his face.
Bob.
The gig is up, man.
The gig is up, buddy.
We've got these texts.
They tell the whole story.
You're busted, man.
Mueller panics.
Mueller's only job here is to cover all of this up and to save the FBI.
He panics because he realizes that they have been up on wires, they've been up on FISAs, they have unmasked Trump's people, they have criminally targeted Trump's people, they've tried to set up Papadopoulos, they've used foreign false hoax dossiers from political opponents.
They have thrown Joe.
The figurative kitchens sink at Donald Trump and nothing has come to fruition and now they're all going to be exposed and he panics.
Hey mom!
The meatloaf!
It's meatloaf time now baby so what do they do?
They hit the house of Manafort the day before who talked to the Senate Intelligence Committee who likely leaked to Mueller by the way what Manafort said.
Manafort was cooperating.
It's in the report.
He's cooperating.
Why are you hitting his house?
You're hitting his house because the Senate Intel Committee, which is known for its leaking, James Wolf, the staffer on that committee, was locked up for lying about leaks to reporters.
Somebody leaks to Mueller, Manafort's not playing ball.
What he told us, Joe, may have been ugly, but it doesn't jive with collusion.
Shut this guy down.
These texts are about to leak.
The texts are about to leak about the dossier where Manafort's a key player, so we have to shut Manafort down.
And they're about to leak about the setup, the lures we put out there for Papadopoulos to try to set him up.
Dude, this text is going to explain everything.
We got to shut these guys down.
It's over, folks.
It's over.
They've been exposed.
It's time for handcuffs.
These people are involved, there is no doubt in my mind, in felony criminal leaks of deeply classified information, of massive abuses of power, of weaponization of branches of government under the color of law.
I want Baker At the FBI, who again, conveniently, on the same day, July 27, John Solomon, who knows everything, reports that Baker is under criminal investigation.
I want Baker, I want McCabe, I want Comey, I want Stroke, I want Page, and anyone else in this debacle to face the full force of our government.
On the legal side, these are going to be provable cases when this comes out.
When this information and the leaking of information comes out, these people deserve to be under an interrogation.
I want the information.
I want what they know.
There has to be.
We will do this the right way.
I want to be clear, not like they did to us.
Sure.
This is one area right now where there's no room for a mud pit.
When you're talking about weaponizing the force of government against one side, the only way to get back to any civil order is to acknowledge that the weaponization of government is an evil deed in and of itself.
On its face.
But I have zero doubt anymore that the players involved in this were involved in a concentrated criminal conspiracy to leak weaponized information they took from political players and unmasked information to media outlets to set up the President of the United States at that time, candidate Donald Trump.
I have absolutely no doubt.
One last thing on this and I just want to get to a couple more quickie stories for the day.
Ladies and gentlemen, it's also clear now that Bob Mueller is not a good guy.
And I mean good guy like in the movies.
He is an antagonist.
He is not a protagonist.
It is crystal clear now.
John Solomon's stunning report in yesterday's show notes.
Solomon knows everything.
He's the same guy that reports in July of 2017 about Jim Baker Being under criminal investigation.
Solomon knows this whole story.
Papadopoulos was the insurance policy.
When the dossier fell apart.
And he wouldn't play ball.
That's why they panicked.
Solomon's report in yesterday's show notes in The Hill is devastating.
Kim Strassel has another devastating opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal opinion column today on Potomac Watch.
That's her wonderful, wonderful section in the Wall Street Journal.
I can't recommend it enough.
In both of those pieces, they indicate a stunning piece of information that Andrew Weissman, contrary to everything we've been told by that lying fraud scammer, Shifty Adam Schiff, Scheming liar!
We now know he is a liar and a fraud.
We have been told that they did not know about the dossier until September.
Lisa Page even said so as well in her congressional testimony.
Why is that September date, Joe, so important?
The sword not knowing the details of the dossier.
Because that's around the time they get the FISA, Joe.
If the FBI knew before they got the FISA, the warrant to spy on the Trump team, before, in August, before they got the warrant and walked into that court, if they knew before the information was political information from Hillary Clinton and not viable criminal or counterintelligence investigation, do you understand the ramifications of that?
That the FBI and Department of Justice knowingly took Hillary Clinton's paid-for political hit piece and walked it into a court in the Starr Chamber in the FISA court to spy on their political opponents?
Do you understand why Adam Schiff needs you to believe they didn't know any of this till after the FISA process started?
Does this make sense, Joe?
Oh, dude, yeah!
Yeah, huge sense!
We now know... Sure!
That not only did the FBI know this, because Bruce Ohr at the Department of Justice, according to this stunning piece in The Hill with Solomon, already told McCabe that this was political information from Hillary Clinton.
He told McCabe in August!
He also told Andrew Weissman.
Who was in the Department of Justice as a high-ranking senior official.
He briefed them in August.
Weissman, the DOJ, and the FBI knew.
Folks, they all knew this was a political hit.
They all knew.
Everybody knew.
Before they walked into court, not after.
Now, you may say, well, how does this tie into Mueller's... An antagonist, not a protagonist.
He's a bad guy.
Folks, Weissman knew.
And Mueller put him on the special counsel anyway.
Knowing Andrew Weissman is knee-deep in this scandal.
Andrew Weissman needed to be investigated.
Joe, there's a line in boxing.
What's the best defense?
The answer?
A damn good offense.
Yeah.
When you're punching the crap out of the other guy in the ring, You don't have to worry about your defense because he's worried about what?
His own!
You're punching the crap out of him!
These people are not stupid, folks.
Mueller fully understands how deep this scandal goes and that Weissman is a key player.
Weissman and the Department of Justice and the FBI knew the entire time that this was a political hit.
So he hires Weissman as his lead investigator to keep the heat off Weissman and to turn around and investigate Donald Trump.
You're probably saying to yourself, that's really sick.
You're darn right it's sick.
It's the sickest thing I've ever heard.
It's all falling apart, folks.
It's all falling apart.
I don't see how we come back from this if people don't come out of this in handcuffs.
Forfeit their homes, civil penalties, criminal penalties.
I don't see how we come back from this.
I really don't.
All right, just one more story.
I just want to leave you with this for the day.
I haven't gotten into a lot of news in the past two days, but I know it's kind of, the segues are always weird, but it's important I get some of the stuff out there too.
There was an interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal the other day.
I just thought, you know how much I love liberal media narrative myth busting, because it's important.
You know, liberals are full of crap, folks.
They've been attacking for a while now what they call the gig economy, Joe.
Things like Uber, people who drive for Lyft, people who rent out their homes on Airbnb.
Liberals hate that.
The reason liberals hate that, I want to be crystal clear so you understand the big 60,000 foot bird's eye view here, Joe, is for a reason.
This part-time economy, or what they insultingly call the gig economy, are typically jobs, Joe, that are not unionized.
People drive, they take their car for Uber, they rent out their home.
There's no union.
They just do what they do and they earn money.
Most people enjoy it, as a matter of fact.
So liberals hate that because unions traditionally support liberal causes.
Folks, that's just the facts.
I'm not an anti-union guy.
If you go to work every day, God bless you.
I mean it.
My father was a union guy.
So was my brother.
I'm just telling you the facts.
Union causes traditionally support Democrat Party politics.
Democrats need unions.
Unions have been shrinking.
They're going to shrink even more.
As this economy, this sharing economy picks up, and we see things like Uber and Airbnb and other things, and it's driving unions and the Democrats crazy, so they insult it.
So there was a study by Katzenkruger that the Democrats have been using for a long time.
It's in the Wall Street Journal saying, oh, this is devastating, Joe.
There's a 50% spike in contracting work.
In other words, the gig economy.
And this is horrible because people aren't going to get benefit.
Meanwhile, people love these jobs.
Or else they wouldn't do them!
People get to make a few bucks on the side.
So liberals have been citing this Katzenkruger study about this big leap in the gig economy and how much trouble it is for the economy.
Unfortunately, the study has been now entirely debunked and liberals are backtracking.
Here's the data they used.
Roughly about 10.7% of people in 2005 were involved in some form of this independent type contracting gig economy, as they call it, sharing economy work, Joe.
In 2015, under Obama, that jumped to 15.8%.
So you may say, Dan, what's the problem?
You're making their point that gig economy jobs jumped up 5.8 percentage points, or 5 percentage points, excuse me.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, that gig economy jumped up because the Obama economy was so bad, people had to, union jobs didn't exist!
What's the number now, as of last summer? 10.1%.
0.6 percentage points below where it was in 2005.
In other words, there are less gig economy jobs now, not more gig economy jobs, because the Trump economy is exploding.
Ironically, union workers, what I'm trying to tell you is Trump has been the greatest thing for you.
If these gig economy jobs are a weapon against you, which they're not, by the way, the best way to get people into full-time employment is to support a president like Donald Trump, who actually supports the economy.
