“THAT INFORMATION WILL DEFINITELY COME OUT”
by Sharon Rondeau
(Nov. 4, 2018) — In an arguably riveting interview between former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos and radio host Dan Bongino on Friday, Papadopoulos laid out a series of bizarre events beginning in early 2016 allegedly targeting him in a plot to promote the Trump-Russia “collusion” narrative.
The 31-year-old former energy consultant and then-unpaid Trump campaign advisor told Bongino he was approached by U.S. intelligence agents, FBI assets, and British and Australian government officials overseas in an apparent attempt to foil Donald Trump’s chances at winning the 2016 presidential election.
In September 2017, Papadopoulos pleaded “guilty” to lying to the FBI and was sentenced a year later to 14 days in prison, a $9,500 fine, and 200 hours of community service. He now says he was “framed in many ways,” that the government withheld key information from him during his interviews, and that he is considering withdrawing from the plea agreement.
Bongino was particularly interested in interviewing Papadopoulos, as he is the author of a New York Times bestselling book on how the U.S. intelligence community allegedly attempted to sabotage Trump’s candidacy.
During the last third of the interview, Papadopoulos stated that he, too, was approached by former Cambridge University professor Stefan Halper, as was then-Trump campaign advisor Dr. Carter Page in the spring of 2016. Unlike Page, however, Papadopoulos said that Halper openly expressed dislike of Trump rather than appearing supportive of the campaign, as Page had told The Daily Caller.
Papadopoulos believes that he was being recorded on at least a number of occasions during the 2016 encounters with various individuals, none of which he said he initiated, and that transcripts exist for some of the conversations.
At the time, Papadopoulos was promoting Israeli energy products in Cyprus, he said, and was reportedly offered multiple bribes while being tapped for information about Russia which he said he never possessed.
Bongino’s last question in the one-hour, six-minute interview was about Papadopoulos’s claim, made on Twitter last Sunday, that there was a “spy” embedded in the Trump campaign. Bongino broached the topic by recalling that Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson had testified to members of Congress that there was a “spy” embedded within the Republican candidate’s campaign.
At a second request to testify to Congress, Simpson invoked his Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination.
Steele’s product, known as the Russia “dossier,” was submitted to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) by the FBI and DOJ to obtain warrants to monitor Carter Page’s communications for a year, beginning in October 2016.
Fusion GPS was the company commissioned by the DNC and Hillary Clinton campaign through law firm Perkins Coie two obtain opposition research on Trump by means of former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele from his alleged Russian sources. The wife of a high-ranking Justice Department official reportedly assisted in that effort; both Bruce and Nellie Ohr have testified to the House Judiciary and Oversight & Government Reform Committees.
On October 25, Papadopoulos testified to members of the same two committees and has said repeatedly that he is willing to testify on Capitol Hill in a public setting as well.
Papadopoulos responded that while Simpson could have been referring to someone else, Papadopoulos is “certain” there was a “low-level player” “connected to our intelligence people” acting as a spy of whose identity Congress is aware but which he did not feel he could divulge.
Describing the spy as someone “that probably no one has really heard of,” Papadopoulos assured Bongino’s audience, “That information will definitely come out.”