The Dan Bongino Show - Ep. 735 Why the Rush to Shut This Guy Up?

Episode Date: June 5, 2018

Summary: In this episode I address the curious circumstances behind the rushed arrest of George Papadopoulos. What is the Mueller probe hiding? I also address the response by Ben Shapiro to yesterday���s show. Finally, I address the key takeaways from yesterday’s ruling in the gay marriage wedding cake case and some critical new economic figures.    News Picks: Why was the arrest of George Papadopoulos rushed? What were they hiding?   More revelations from George Papadopoulos’ wife.   Ben Shapiro’s response to my show yesterday.   This piece provides a strong synopsis of the gay marriage wedding cake case.    Some good news and bad news about the recent job numbers.   Two Hillary Clinton tweets from before the election that indicate she was already prepared for the “Trump/Russia” story.    Copyright CRTV. All rights reserved. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Dan Bongino Show. 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? Oh, we got a monster here, Dan. Just a monster. The show is going to be stacked today. I have to get right to it. I don't want to screw around at all because I have so much to cover today. Alright, Dan-o. Including Ben Shapiro's response to the show yesterday. Very gentlemanly done. And some people had problems with the tone of the show, said I apologized too much. I am sorry.

I'm sorry. I don't want to. I like Ben. It's not, you know, it's just the way it is. So I feel like we can have a civil discussion about this. And he's handled it nicely. He wrote a nice piece. We'll address that today.

Major league discovery last night, Joe. I know I say that a lot, folks. I mean, I'm in the business of content production. I get excited about things. Maybe it's the Queens of New York are in me. But I saw something last night in a piece. This Jeff Carlson at the market's work has been just crushing it. I think his conclusion's a little off.

It's not personal towards Jeff. Again, some minor disagreement on things. But I saw something last night about Papadopoulos that sparked something I'd heard a while ago. And I put two pieces together. It's going to be great. So don't go anywhere. All right, let's get right to it. Today's show, we got an awesome new sponsor. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. And I love these guys

because I was a customer for a very long time before they became a sponsor. So when they sent me a couple free samples, I was like, heck yeah, I'll eat that. Omaha Steaks. Yeah, baby. Oh, yeah. I had their filet mignons the other day like butter.

But you don't got to chew them. You just sit there, Joe. You just let it sit in your mouth. You let the little bit of fat like the meat. I love that. I'm a steak connoisseur. I love it. Just let it sit there.

Yes. Just let your senses go wild. Omaha Steaks, baby. Father's Day, right around the corner. You trying to find a perfect gift? We got it. Omaha Steaks. The Stizzles.

Ew. Does your dad love to grill but hate the hassle and poor quality at the grocery store? I do. I have to tell you. Seriously. The meat at the local grocery store is awful. I'm not going to say who, but it's really bad. So Omaha Steak is perfect for us.

What better way to kick off grilling season than by gifting an Omaha Steak's Father's Day package to dad? It is fantastic. The meat is absolutely incredible. It melts in your mouth. It'll set off a flavor explosion if you are a meat person like I am. I absolutely love it. I tell you, I could eat Omaha Steaks for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. My wife knows it. Why Omaha Steaks? Well, they offer everything your dad could want for his grilling needs. Omaha Steaks delivers hand-trimmed, flash-frozen, and vacuum

sealed meats. That makes a difference, by the way, the way they seal it. It's so juicy, directly to your door in an Omaha Steaks cooler. Pork, poultry, veal, lamb, bison, seafood, vegetables, you name it. All the highest quality cuts with one-of-a-kind flavor. All beef is USDA inspected for quality and aged for 21 days to unlock the full flavor and tenderness of the cuts. Omaha Steaks even gives you the option to customize cuts for your dad's grilling needs to find recipes, wine pairings, et cetera, all that kind of stuff. Customization is key. Folks, here's what I want you to do. Right now, Omaha Steaks is giving a limited time offer to my listeners for Father's Day at 78% off. 78% off. This is really an amazing deal. Go to omahasteaks.com, and here's what you

got to do. You have to type my last name, Bongino, B-O-N-G-I-N-O, in the search bar, and you get this Omaha Steaks Father's Day package, which includes two tender filet mignons, my personal favorite, two beefy top sirloins, four chicken fried steaks, two boneless pork chops. It goes on. Four all-beef Omaha Steak burgers, four gourmet jumbo franks, 12 ounces of all-beef meatballs, one pound of steakhouse fries, four caramel apple tartlets, which my kids love, one Omaha Steaks seasoning packet, plus get four more grill-ready

Omaha Steaks burgers free with purchase. Again, this limited time package for only $49.99. When you go to omahasteaks.com, type Bongino in the search bar for this deal. OmahaSteaks.com, type Bongino in the search bar. Don't wait. This offer ends soon. Yeah, baby. Yeah. Love Omaha Steaks. I'm telling you, it is good. Good stuff. Okay, so let me just get first to this Papadopoulos stuff because this is crazy. I have a piece by, I think it's Jeff Carlson. I'm sorry if I've got his name wrong,

but he's done some really great work. I will link to it in the show notes from the markets work. And I saw something I'd been clued into a while ago by, let's say someone else. But it's interesting. let me explain to you first how this federal system differs in contrast to the state system when it comes to arrests and prosecution because this is going to be important yeah and why we're addressing it is because i have

the how to put the question at the top folks the question you should all be asking yourself right now is, why the rush to shut George Papadopoulos up? Now, George Papadopoulos is the Trump campaign staffer who has been the central focus of this entire investigation. George Papadopoulos is the guy who meets with Alexander Downer in this bar in London. in this bar in London. And this is alleged to be the cause of the entire FBI investigation because Papadopoulos is supposed to have talked to him about some information the Russians had on Hillary. So the FBI, oh, wow, a Trump person has information

on the Russians and Hillary. We got to investigate that. Well, that whole entire story has fallen apart. I'll get to that in relationship to Ben Shapiro's response in a little while. But this is important. Why the rush to shut him up? In other words, if Papadopoulos is the key to this whole thing, and he is some Russian colluder colluding with Russians to obtain negative information on Hillary for use in an election to immorally and illicitly overturn

election results or whatever it may be, or to influence people or to steal information for the Russians and get it out there on behalf of the Trump team. Why the rush to shut him up so quickly? Now, I'm going to answer that question. First, keep that in the back of your head. And when I say the rush to shut him up, he's arrested on a return trip home for a trip from Germany. This is what I was reminded of. But then there's something else that cued me in. He comes back from Germany, gets off a plane, he's arrested.

He makes his initial appearance the next day. He's processed late, late at night. Why the rush? Now, you may say, well, what's the difference? Why get him in? It's the way they got him which elicits a lot of suspicion on my part. Now, in the federal system, when you're a local police officer, Joe, the system typically, not all the time, but the system typically works in reverse when you're a local police officer like I was with the MIPD. What do I mean? If I see Joe Armacost in the middle of the street, you know, punching somebody in the face, I arrest Joe. The charging documents for Joe

typically come later. Well, why? Because I can't write up a document about you assaulting someone. I didn't see it until I was driving by you in my patrol car and saw it. I see you punch a guy in the face, Joe. I then write up the complaint report and the charging document later says, in the face, Joe. I then write up the complaint report and the charging document later says, I, Officer Dan Bongino, witnessed Joe Armacost in an act of felonious mopery punching some guy, you know, Joey

Bag of Donuts in the face. So, witness the crime, make a probable cause arrest. There's no warrant, right, Joe? We can agree. I arrested you because I watched you punch him in the face. I made a probable cause arrest. There is no... Folks, please keep this in mind. This is important. This is a major league thing. I arrested you because I watched you punch him in the face. I made a probable cause arrest. There is no... Folks, please keep this in mind. This is important.

This is a major league thing I uncovered reading this guy's piece and I thought, gosh, that guy... Yes, now it makes sense what I was thinking. That's called a probable cause arrest. No warrant. Perfectly legal, by the way.

A police officer can arrest you based on probable cause. How do I have probable cause Joe punch the guy in the face? I witnessed it. I saw it. The federal system works a little differently. Not all the time, but I'm talking about as a general rule. When I was a federal agent, the way it works is typically the opposite. I will get a tip about

Joe. Hey, Joe Armacost is printing counterfeit in his house. How do you know that? Well, I'm his neighbor. I saw him come in the house with a bunch of printing ink. I noticed a bunch of suspicious purchases. One day I looked inside and he slammed the door and I noticed he was looking at some money and it looked fake. You see what I'm saying? You get a tip. The federal system, PC arrests are rare. They happen, but they're very rare. In other words, for me to just show up at the house, Joe's house that day, based on a tip, and arrest him on a PC arrest, if I can gather the probable cause without a warrant, Joe, is very rare.

The United States Attorney's Office, which is ultimately going to prosecute these cases, folks, this is good. Please bear with me because this is super important to this case. The United States Attorney's Office hates probable cause arrest. If you show up to the U.S. Marshals in the detention facility and the courthouse with a perpetrator in tow and you have no warrant and it was a PC arrest, it's perfectly legal if the probable cause was there. Say you do some other homework and you find out Joe may have in fact been printing counterfeit. I'm telling you right now as a matter of procedure, the AUSA and the marshals are going to be pissed. And every federal agent listening, you know what I'm telling you is true.

I did this for 12 years. I've arrested tons of people. I'm not trying to impress you. I'm just, again, establishing bona fides here, okay? You generally don't do it. The local system's different arrest people bring them in you file the paperwork later the federal system file the paperwork get the warrant then go arrest them okay that's important why do i bring that up as jeff carlson's piece points out and i please

encourage you to read it the markets work it'll be in the show notes today at Bongino.com. Please read it. It's really, really good. I think his conclusion's a little off, though. George Papadopoulos was a PC arrest at the airport. He was. Wow. That's interesting. Now, again, if you're not a federal agent, that probably means nothing to you. But if you were, I know for a fact the federal agents listening to this are going, wow, that's a big piece of information.

Why? Folks, if George Papadopoulos holds the keys to the kingdom and George Papadopoulos, as the FBI, according to a number of leaks in The New York Times, believed that Papadopoulos' information about the emails, and I'll get to that in a minute, that he exchanged to Downer in the London bar, if they believe this guy had the keys to the kingdom and they had all this information that he was going to be the key to unfolding this massive scheme to collude with the Russians,

then why the rush to arrest him? No warrant, nothing. You don't have anything prepared, Joe? You have no warrant prepared? You have no charging document? You have no complaint? You have nothing? Now, there are a few different ways to do this. You can get an arrest warrant via complaint, or you can go to a grand jury. complaint, a federal complaint. Now, folks, you may be saying, well, I don't understand. Well, what's the big deal here? Getting an arrest warrant via a federal complaint, issuing a complaint and bringing it to the AUSA's office to get a warrant, swear to it in front of a judge. Folks, it takes nothing. Nothing. It's a simple procedure. It's not hard, especially in a case, Joe, you would think involved international collusion to overthrow an election. Joe,

would think involved international collusion to overthrow an election right joe joe yeah you write out what you have yeah on a word folks it's this simple joe joe is a federal agent he goes to his desk he pulls up a template he deletes the information in the template i mean just a word template i'm talking about not like you know some sensitive file you know it usually have a template and it's like you know it's fake it's like you know joey bag of donuts and it's just meant to keep the form structured. You delete the paragraphs. You fill it in with your information. George Papadopoulos did A.

George Papadopoulos did B on this date. George Papadopoulos did C. You go to the AUSA, the Assistant United States Attorney. He or she reads it over. Hey, Agent Joe, nice work here. Hold on. Let's get in front of the magistrate. When I was in Eastern District of New York,

you walk downstairs, or upstairs, I forget. It was a big building. You go in front of the judge. The judge reads it, swears you in. You swear this is true. It's true. Stamp, here's your warrant. The whole process, if it's not too busy, two hours tops.

Why didn't that happen with papa dizzle why well as carlson magnificently points out in his the market's work piece something again i i always give shout outs when deserved i miss this that was the same day joe the day Papa Dizzle's arrested at the airport with no warrant, by the way. Very unusual, especially in a big case like this. Is the same day the Inspector General Horowitz, who's investigating all the malfeasance in the Clinton email, he's like the internal affairs guy, is the same day he notifies the Mueller investigation about the existence of pregnant pause. The stroke page texts. This reminds me of that movie Girls Night, where the lady from Grey's Anatomy with the red hair, the doctor, I forget her name,

she keeps doing these pregnant pauses that annoys the hell out of her client. She's like, and they're going to offer? And the lady's like, just tell us, you idiot! Folks, you don't find that odd? The same day the inspector general notifies Mueller about the existence of this body of text messages that are absolutely damning

between the two primary people on the legal and investigative side in the FBI investigating both Hillary and Trump and his team. He finds out about these text messages. He notifies Mueller. Well, he knew about it, but he notifies Mueller. And on the same day, the Mueller team, in a sprint to the airport, goes, picks up Papa Dizzle at the airport, and shuts him right down. Right there. No warrant.

Zippo. No coincidences. Joe, listen. Yes, there are in life. Not in this case. I'm done with it. I'm done accepting. We have given you now from episode 628 on, what, five or six hundred coincidences?

At least. Listen, it's beyond a reasonable doubt at this point that there was something, just that the evidence of felonious mopery here is deep. What do I think happened? Because this still might not make sense to you, and I don't want to leave it up in the air. Oh, by the way, this is fascinating. Who signs off on the complaint? Who is the special counsel team member that signs off on the complaint?

Joe. special counsel team member that signs off in the complaint this joe genie re who was once the uh legal counsel the lawyer for the clinton foundation folks listen again i know i had some kind of back and forth with Ben. This is not conjecture. These are facts. Now, the evidence is, those are facts. The evidence that's factual. What you conclude from it, I get still at this point, may not be evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, but there's no denying anymore that this is evidence.

This is evidence that there's something going on here. I'm telling you as an agent that that is not how these things work. PC arrests in a case of this magnitude are almost unheard of. Why? Joe, why would you? What happened that day that made them violent? I'm telling you for a fact, okay? I've done it.

I've been there. This is experience in the real world. You do not make PC arrests as a matter of policy and procedure if you don't have to. You just don't do it. The United States Attorney's Office hates it. You know why they hate it?

Because if you show up, Joe, and you didn't have probable cause, you're going to be left out of court, and there's going to be a whole lot of explaining to do. You got nothing. They want the complaint and the charging document in advance to make sure Joe is not an idiot. Gotcha.

Like, oh, this agent brought in this case, and the probable cause is nothing. Now we got to dismiss this thing. We're going to have all kinds of legal complications. They hate it. The U.S. Marshals hate it. Why? Because the U.S. Marshals are responsible for the detention of that person when you arrest them if he's

remanded to the custody of the court. They want to plan out the workday like everyone else. You don't just show up unplanned. Folks, listen, whether you like this or not, this is the way it works. I was there. You call up the Marshals. You go marshal joey bag of donuts here's how this is going to go down um dan bongino with the secret service i've got two bodies coming in today we're going to make the arrest at 11 we're going to be in at noon all right we're ready for you they have every that's the way it works in the real world you may say well what happens if stuff happens you know late at night it does it's but it's rare why is it rare because we're not police officers we're not patrolling the streets police officers see things at two o'clock in the morning

why because they're out on the street on patrol federal agents don't do that they're home sleeping no we are we work nine to five unless there's some protection office or surveillance or something else going on joey you see the difference? Big time, man. Yeah. We are not patrol officers. We are investigators. It's different.

Patrol officers show up with PC arrests because they witness a robbery in the middle of the night. FBI agents don't do that. They're not patrolling the New York field office in the middle of the night looking for robberies. They plan this stuff out in advance. They get tips. They do big elaborate out in advance. They get tips. They do big elaborate investigations. They bring a charging document.

They get an arrest warrant. They call the marshals. They call the AUSA, especially on significant cases to make sure the I's are dotted and the T's are crossed. I have never in my life heard of a case like this where a PC arrest in the middle of the night in an airport occurs with a guy who's supposedly the key player in a major international collusion operation between the Trump team and the Russians.

It makes no sense. Even worse, Joe. Papa Dizzle had no attorney at the hearing on July 27. What? Yeah, what? Folks, another thing. Not completely unheard of, July 27. What? Yeah, what? Folks, another thing. Not completely unheard of, but in my, again, in my experience, incredibly, incredibly rare.

He had no attorney? No kidding. He had no attorney present, Joe, at the hearing. I've never heard of such a thing in such a big and prominent case why the rush why not just wait to get a warrant i promise i'm an ace but it's important you understand how odd this is why not wait for his attorney to show up what's what's the rush uh all right i'm gonna get to some more of this in a second all right because this is um What's the rush? All right, I'm going to get to some more of this in a second, all right? Because this is just mind-blowing stuff here.

Folks, let me answer your questions, because I'm going to debunk a lot of this in a minute, too. That Papadopoulos here is the key to this whole thing. There's something going on here. The rush to the airport, I'm starting to believe more and more every day, was a rush to shut Papadopoulos up because when they saw these texts between Stroke and Page, remember now, he's notified the same day. Mueller hears about these texts. All of a sudden, oh, let's go get Papadopoulos at the airport. Do we have a warrant? Not yet. Doesn't matter. Does he have a lawyer? Not yet. Don't worry about it. Go get him. not yet doesn't matter does he have a lawyer not yet don't worry about it go get him a lot of these texts which are starting to come out now and a hat tip to a number of people on

the internet i'm sorry guys i've received it from so many different people on email i'll be sitting here all day doing hat tips but again culling through the files there in the text. There are some fascinating, fascinating texts out there about Oconis lures in December of 2015 between Page and Stroke, two of the lead people on this Clinton email investigation and the Trump investigation. Remember, the case isn't opened officially, Joe, The case isn't opened officially, Joe, until July of 2016. Now, OCONUS lures, what are those? What's OCONUS? OCONUS is outside the continental United States, meaning foreign countries.

Lures? Lures like bait? Who are they talking about? Agents. Quite possibly so, Joe. You're darn right. I don try to plan this with joe in advance now okonis lores don't you find it odd that in that thing they're talking about you know there's okonis lores mentioned these are in the text all of a sudden there's a rush to shut

papadopoulos up who did papadopoulos when they he comes into the meeting with the FBI that day, they grab him at the airport. Who does he mention? He mentions Mifsud. Joseph Mifsud, this Maltese professor. He mentions it. Papadopoulos. He mentions Mifsud. Mifsud is the professor who's alleged to have told Papadopoulos about Hillary's emails. Oconus lures?

Like a spy overseas trying to lure people into something? All of a sudden they go pinch Papadopoulos in the airport in a rush? In the airport, Papadopoulos, or when they arrest him and they're interviewing him, excuse me, you have to pinch him at the airport on a PC arrest, which again, I've never heard of in a situation like this. Papadopoulos mentions Joseph Mifsud, a Maltese professor who told him something about Hillary's emails. And next thing you know, there's this rush to get him in the court system and shut him down. Keep in mind, he's told to shut his mouth as a condition of his release. Keep in mind, he's told to shut his mouth as a condition of his release.

He doesn't even have a lawyer at the arraignment. It happened so fast at the initial appearance in front of the judge. Now, as it's starting to make sense when I keep telling you about how we've been focusing on the poll the whole time? We've been focusing on the use of informants and spies, according to the New York Times, who's already outed, de facto outed Halper, Stefan Halper, and Chuck Ross's reporting, which has been fascinating about Stefan Halper. The use of this guy Halper as an asset for the government a spy in in uh in normal speak to pull information from the Trump team he's emailing the Trump team hey what do you guys know about Hillary you getting this show Joe what do you know about Hillary's emails what do you know about Hillary's emails they don't know this guy this guy Halper we now know is working for

the government in effort to pull information about Hillary's emails out of the Trump team. I've repeatedly said to you, we have to stop for a moment focusing on the poll and start asking about the push. The poll part is bad enough. The fact that a government informant spy human asset was trying to interact with the trump team on behalf of an opposition political party in power to pull information out of it is disturbing enough i've told you that what's more disturbing would be the narrative that would come out if it was learned that the information they were trying to pull out wasn't even their own. That it was pushed in by another federal government asset or foreign asset on behalf of our government in an effort to pull it out in what we would call an entrapment operation. Simple story. I have nothing on Joe Armacost. I want to get Joe Armacost for conspiracy to commit bank robbery.

Joe's never robbed a bank and has never thought about robbing a bank. I pay an asset to go knock on Joe's door to befriend him. Hey, buddy, I want to clean out your gutters. I'll give you a chance. Joe all of a sudden takes this guy in. Whatever. You see, you know, he's using him around the house. Three, four days in, guy starts talking about a bank robbery.e laughs him off four or five days later he mentions it again joe

thinks he's kidding around a couple days later joe's in a coffee shop some guy befriends him again different guys hey joe uh what do you know about robbing banks ah nothing but i heard a guy once a guy cleaning my gutters talking about rob robbing a bank. Next thing you know, Joe's in handcuffs for conspiracy to rob a bank. He's like, what did I do? It's not the guy who pulled the information out of Joe. It's the guy who pushed it in. If we find out later that that guy who cleaned Joe's gutters was really a local police officer, FBI agent, trying to entrap Joe. In other words, Joe had no intention whatsoever of robbing a bank. The idea to do so when the information was planted. Do you understand how

this is it? This is the real, this is the story. This is why I can't emphasize enough in cable news appearances that not that we have to completely stop focusing on the poll. That's part of it. But an entrapment operation is a push and a pull. It is a push of information into an organization or a person that wouldn't have been there. They weren't going to rob a bank. They weren't going to kidnap anyone. They weren't going to do anything. It was pushed in. They entrapped them for the

purposes of pulling it out later to entrap them in a conspiracy that never would have existed in the first place. Papa D gets off the plane from Germany in a hasty, I've never heard anything like it, arrest. Nope. By the way, by a

prosecutor who worked for the Clinton Foundation. That's a fact. Jeannie Rhee. They arrest him at the airport. A PC arrest. The prosecutor stamps this thing, signs this thing. They show up at court. The guy doesn't even have a lawyer. They interview him at the airport, a PC arrest. The prosecutor stamps this thing, signs this thing. They show up at court. The guy doesn't even have a lawyer. They interview him.

He makes the mistake, Joe, of mentioning Mifsud. You think it's possible that the federal agents interviewing Papadopoulos already know who Mifsud is? Did he just mention Mifsud? We gotta... Everybody, shh. We better shut... It's just Negan time. We're gonna shut that down.

Why? Why would they want to shut it down, Joe? Because they're trying to hide the push. Now, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey said something fascinating on the Laura Ingraham radio show yesterday. Forgive me for not having the cut. It's been a busy morning and folks have been dealing with a lot of stuff. But the show is important to me. And I was up all morning doing this. I just didn't have the time. folks have been dealing with a lot of stuff and, but the show is important to me and this,

I was up all morning doing this. I just didn't have the time, but in a nutshell, and I know I have a lot to get through. So gosh, we're already half an hour in. Yeah. Mukasey said something fascinating on Laura Ingram's radio show yesterday. He's like,

why isn't anybody asking why Stefan Halper, a central intelligence agency asset. he was a CIA asset. How did he become an FBI asset? Joe, such a simple question. Again, forgive me. I had missed. He is an asset for the CIA. How did he become an FBI asset all of a sudden?

In a law enforcement investigation. How did that happen? You think John Brennan may have known something about that? You think the director of the CIA may have known how a CIA foreign intelligence asset became a spy to target an American in a law enforcement operation? You say, oh, it was a CI investigation. Really? Because George Papadopoulos was arrested on federal law.

George Papadopoulos wasn't arrested for being a terrorist. George Papadopoulos was arrested on a standard 1001 lying to federal agents crime. The federal equivalent of jaywalking. How did that intersection happen? Folks, let me suggest to you that paragraph one of this report may describe an entrapment operation. An operation to push information into the Trump team via various sources. And when Papadopoulos returns and mentions one of those names, the efforts to shut him up,

given that the IG notifies Mueller of the presence of these stroke page texts, which describe good portions of this operation. The efforts to shut him up become grave. Where is he? He's coming back from Germany tonight. Do we have a warrant? Just go get him. We'll draw up the complaint afterwards.

Folks, again, hat tip to Jeff over at the markets work. Read the piece. He has a different conclusion. I mean, I shouldn't say conclusion. He's not positive, but he has some really good questions. I don't mean to, I'm not in any way trying to disparage the man's work. I believe, and it's tough for me to, Jeff, by the way, I know you tweeted me. It's tough for me to see his tweets because I hate to say it.

It sounds jerky, but I have too many followers now. So if you're not very, it doesn't show up in my timeline often. But I'm going to look for it today. If you want to email me, my email's on the website, Jeff. I'd love to hear your response to this because he does great work. His conclusion's a little different, Joe. I believe he thinks Papadopoulos may have been working for the Bureau himself. And that hasty arrest may have been an effort to shut him up. I got to tell you, I don't believe that. And I'm going to get to why in a second. This is super important. Again,

hat tip to Chuck Ross, who did some great work on this. All right. Today's show also brought to you by buddies at iTarget. I'm a big fan. I spoke to Joe from iTarget yesterday. Such a great guy, such a great product, great reviews. One of the best products out there. iTarget, what is it going to do? It's going to make you basically a far more proficient shooter than you are now. If you are a Second Amendment advocate, if you're a first-time firearm owner, a police officer, you're in the military, or you're just interested as a first-time firearm owner in how to operate proficiently and safely a firearm, this is the best system for you out there. What will it do? Well, it'll teach you how to take your dry fire practice to the next level. What's dry fire?

Dry firing is when you safely unload a weapon. You check it. You check it twice. You check it three times. You cannot check enough that that weapon is unloaded. You have an accidental discharge. You can never take that round back ever. We always practice the laser rule anyway.

You always treat a firearm like it's loaded, even when you've checked it 10 times. What you're going to do is they're going to send you a laser round at eye target, which you're going to drop in the firearm you have now. No manipulations necessary. It's not going to hurt your gun or anything like that, right? And when you dry fire on that laser round, when you pull the trigger on that laser round, it comes with a target, the eye target system. You will see what your groupings would have looked like.

Now, the problem with tri-firing now is when you're pulling the trigger on a safely unloaded weapon to practice your trigger pull, your sight alignment, your sight picture, and things like that. When you're doing that, you have no idea what the grouping would have looked like because there's obviously no round. This will emit a laser and you can see exactly what your groupings would have look like. Now, day one, you may be a little scattered. By the end of the week, your groups are going to be tight. You'll be shooting the wings off of a firefly.

This is a great system. Competitive shooters dry fire 10 times more than they live fire. Go pick it up today. The website, itargetpro.com. Great Father's Day gift too, by the way. itargetpro.com. The letter I,getPro.com. Great Father's Day gift too, by the way. iTargetPro.com. The letter I, TargetPro.com. If you go to Bongino.com backslash sponsors, by the way, excuse me, slash sponsors. I always say that, sponsors. You'll see all my stuff in promo code on there for sponsors. iTargetPro.com. Promo code Dan for 10% off. Remember this, competitive shooters.

Again, they dry fire 10 times more than they live fire at the range the range can get expensive this is a way in the safety and security of your own home to take your dry fire practice to the next level okay so uh just let me wrap this up because i want to move on to a couple things i want to address ben uh some things by shapiro his response here's why I don't think Papadopoulos, so I think, and Jeff, forgive me again if I'm speaking out of turn, please send me an email

and I'll address it on tomorrow's show, but I think he believes Papadopoulos may have been working with the government. I don't believe that. I don't believe it because I, his wife now, Papadopoulos' wife, Simona Maggiante, excuse me if I'm saying the name wrong, is now speaking out.

Tucker Carlson had an incredible interview with her last night on his show, and she also gave an interview to Chuck Ross of The Daily Caller, which I will link to in the show notes today, again, up on Gino.com. Mangiante said something, just a couple bombshells in there.

Number one, that it was Papadopoulos in the interview with the FBI who introduces Mifsud's name. In other words, Joe, think about it. If you're Joe Armacost and you're working with a Russian agent, which is what the Democrats are alleging Mifsud was. That Mifsud, the guy who told Papadopoulos allegedly about Hillary's emails and the Russians having them, if this guy was authentically a Russian agent and you're working with this Russian agent to collude on behalf of Donald Trump to win an election, right? The whole bedrock of their case. Why would you introduce the guy's name in an FBI interview?

I don't think I would. Of course you wouldn't. You'd hide it. That would be the one piece of information you wouldn't bring up. It was Papadopoulos who volunteered the name. Does that sound logical to you folks? Secondly, Papadopoulos' wife, please read the piece by Ross. It's good.

Says he was threatened with additional charges of being, this is incredible, an Israeli spy if he didn't fess up. Do you believe this? If this is true, do you believe this? That the guy was threatened with being an Israeli spy if he didn't fess up to false statements charges and start talking? Ladies and gentlemen, this case by the day gets worse. So now you have a guy who could potentially be innocent of everything. There's a distinct possibility that some intelligence entity pushed Mifsud into contacting Papadopoulos, who could be innocent in this thing.

Papadopoulos repeats the charge to a guy named Downer later, slips it through a back channel. Papadopoulos finds himself potentially in prison for six months after fully acknowledging the guy's name in the interview, according to his wife. And in order to get him to talk, by the way, they're threatening him with being an Israeli spy? Folks, come on. Come on, man.

You understand what's happening here? They had to shut this guy up. Why? They want to shut up Papa D because Papa D is the key to Mifsud boom you're darn right and if Mifsud is not a Russian agent and is an agent of someone else by the way people who know Mifsud who as I discard as I um excuse me described last week I didn't discover it, described it. People who know Mifsud, his friends, say he's an ally of Western intelligence agencies. Now does it make sense why they need to shut this guy up? The push may have come from friendlies, not from the Russians.

That's the problem. That's the problem. It's the push. There you go. The push matters. If the Russians did not push the information into Papadopoulos' head and friendlies did, you have the biggest case of entrapment in American history. Let's rush to the airport. Get the Smith & Wesson bracelets out.

Handcuffs. Oh, man. Folks, listen, I don't... Really, I'm done with the coincidences at this point. I'm done with it. Okay. Let me do this one last week because then I want to motor through

the rest of the show because I really do have a lot to talk about. I still want to get to Shabir. Joe, we may go a little long today. You okay with that? Yeah, I'm cool, man. It's an important show today. All right, Father's Day.

This is the Father's Day. We got a bunch of options for you, and we also got our buddies at Mancrate. Yeah, baby, yeah. I opened this thing. I think it took me seven minutes, five to seven minutes. They send you a crowbar in Mancrate. I'm not even kidding. It's a real crowbar, too. It's pretty cool. Here's the problem with Father's Day. Dad isn't going to tell you what to seven minutes. They send you a crowbar in Mancrate. I'm not even kidding. It's a real crowbar, too. It's pretty cool.

Here's the problem with Father's Day. Dad isn't going to tell you what to get him. Truth is, he may not know what he wants himself. I don't. I'm the worst. If you don't buy me a truck or a gun, I really don't want anything. Except Mancrate salami bouquet, my personal favorite. Yeah, truth is, Dad doesn't know what he wants himself half the time. This Father's

Day, give him a gift he is guaranteed to love with Mancrate's hand-picked and packaged gifts for every type of dad. His dad doesn't know what he wants himself half the time. This Father's Day, give him a gift he is guaranteed to love with man crates. Handpicked and packaged gifts for every type of dad. They have the knife-making kit for the hands-on dad. I love that one. Or the whiskey appreciation crate, my neighbor likes that, for fathers who like the finer things. Most gifts ship in a sealed wooden crate with a crowbar. It's a real crowbar.

excuse me, in a sealed wooden crate with a crowbar. It's a real crowbar. So dad or your man or your buddy or your son or your friend gets to pry his man crate open in front of everyone. When is the last time you gave your dad a gift he needed a crowbar to open? Never. With man crates, you're giving dad more than a gift. You're giving him a gift experience unlike any other. It's a lot of fun.

Have your kids help you open it. It's a blast. Plus, every man crate comes with a 100% satisfaction guarantee. Get your special Father's Day discount today at ManCrates.com slash Dan. Crate, C-R-A-T-E-S, ManCrates.com slash Dan. This is a limited time offer only for Father's Day. So go check this out today. That's mancrates.com slash Dan, mancrates.com slash Dan. Go check it out. These are really cool gifts. The salami bouquet is one of my personal favorites, the whiskey appreciation package there. And you get to open that thing up with that crowbar, rip that sucker right off, blow off some testosterone in the process.

that sucker right off, blow off some testosterone in the process. All right. I'm going to get to Shapiro in a second. Just some quick points on the Masterpiece Cake Shop case yesterday, which was the Baker case, the cake in a gay wedding. And it was described by liberals as a narrow ruling, which is odd because it was a 7-2 ruling in the Supreme Court. I don't know exactly how that's narrow. I get it. They were talking about the scope, but David French has a really good piece in National Review that I encourage you to read that will be in the show notes, which describes how, yes, it wasn't exactly that wide in scope, the ruling, Joe, that we're all going to be protected against religious discrimination against us, but it wasn't as limited as people are describing it either.

A couple of points on this. There were two components to the case that the baker, there was a case in Colorado, just a gay couple walked in, they wanted a custom created cake for their gay wedding. The baker said, listen, I'll sell you any cake you want, but I'm not going to create a unique expression of my artistic uh uh abilities in a in a cake uh you can buy anything else but

i'm sorry i'm not going to do that because i consider a participation in it and against my religious beliefs so he made two claims the baker that one it was protected expression and this was compulsion in other words someone was compelling him to create something against his religious beliefs that was claim number one um claim number two that the colorado civil rights division violate violated his free exercise of religion um on claim number one about protected expression the court kind of punted a little bit if you read french's piece he goes into it a little more detail um but the court had basically said that um that there was a continuum of expressive content show in other words if the gay couple just walked

in and said hey we want a red cake done creatively there may have been an issue with the guy saying no but if you were to walk in and say hey we want a rainbow cake and on the top um you know an expression about how the the benefits of of gay marriage or whatever it may be, that that's a different degree of expressive content. Make sense, Joe? But the court kind of punted on that. They just basically said that as the degree of expressive content goes up, the degree of constitutional protection kicks in.

So it pretty much makes sense. But it wasn't conclusive on that. Secondly, on the free exercise of religion, the court jumped on this on was all over it the court condemned the anti-religious comments of the colorado civil rights division they were disgusting people on the colorado civil rights division attacked this baker phillips um they had called his religious expression uh despicable they had made comments about the use of religion to discriminate against people they were some of the comments were really unbelievable. The court, Anthony Kennedy included, absolutely filleted them on that note.

But there was one line in there, and this is where the liberals stop. They say, oh, well, okay, it was narrow, and a lot of liberals are interpreting this, meaning, Joe, well, if the Civil Rights Division, Coloradoado civil rights division which won after this baker for not baking this cake just would have done it and not said hey basically your religion stinks everything would have been okay french points out in a well-done piece no no that's not exactly what happened libs there was more to this they pointed out, the Supreme Court, that interestingly enough, the Colorado Civil Rights Division, when people who were religious walked in and wanted a cake that, whatever, said something like, hey, we respect a man and woman, male-female marriage only. That's not acceptable. But you get the point. That was pro-traditional biblical marriage that when bakers didn't want to bake that cake, the Colorado Civil Rights Division

did nothing against the baker. You get my point, Joe? Yeah. So, in other words, you want a pro-Christian cake, Christian marriage? No, no, no. I'm not going to bake it.

Colorado Civil Rights Division does nothing. But when a gay couple walked in and said, we want a pro-gay marriage cake, basically, in your expressive content, and you say no, then they said, no, it's quote offensive. Now, French, again, eloquently points out that the government doesn't decide what is offensive.

Clarence Thomas piled on and absolutely correctly said, hey, listen, Clarence Thomas, obviously who and absolutely correctly said, hey, listen. Clarence Thomas, obviously who's black, says, you know what I find interesting here? That when the Ku Klux Klan and a bunch of clown white supremacist losers, we'll leave it at that, wanted to burn a cross,

the court said, hey, you can burn a cross. You can. You don't have the right to stop them from doing stupid stuff. But now this is, so now all of a sudden, like, you know, we're not worried about offensive there, but then the government gets to determine what's offensive when it comes to the definition of gay marriage. I don't get it. So you can offend black people, but you can't offend gay couples.

Joe, do you see where they're going with this? Oh, yeah. The government doesn't get to determine what's offensive. You do. You want to, sadly, sadly, you want to become an a-hole. I'm sorry. White supremacists that do dumb stuff, like, I mean, outrageously offensive stuff like burn across.

Unfortunately, a lot of that stuff is protected. I mean, listen, unfortunately people do it, but it is a better way. It is a more precise way to say it is it's protected, but it was interesting in that the civil rights division got to determine what was offensive in regards to whose cake was offensive and who wasn't. And the court ruled Kennedy included, by the way, that no, that's not the way this works.

So French says, this is actually a bigger ruling than you think, because now they're not going to be able to, they have to find a new reason. And if it's not offensive religion, well, what else are you going to say? Right? You see the point, Joe? Oh, yeah. Good time. Good piece. Please read it.

It's very well done. Secondly, I talk about the work of Lewis Woodhill a lot. He's at, gosh, real clear markets, right? I have a piece from him in the show notes. He's really good in the economic numbers. Really, really good. Short, sweet to the point. Just a couple things to point out before I get to Shapiro.

On the bad news side, the job numbers were great. 223,000 jobs in May. Great job number. Really, really big production of jobs under the Trump economy. But he says, listen, bad news first. Adjusted for labor force participation. Remember, we're dealing with a percentage in the unemployment rate, Joe. But when you talk about the actual number of people working, the unemployment rate, Joe, looks quite different.

You know what it is? No. 10.3%. Yeah, I i know i see the look of your face yeah that's actually not that great well it was i'm not doing what about ism it was far worse under obama and the uh labor force participation rate the higher the better by the way you want more people participating in the workforce working it is going up under trump but again bad news first he points out we have to be you know let's not do what liberals do and lie about stuff the adjusted for labor force participation unemployment rate is still high now there are a lot of reasons for that that are beyond the scope of this show maybe i'll go into it in a

little more detail tomorrow or later in the week, one of them being the extensive welfare safety net. People have job availability now. The job market's super hot. But Joe, if you can make 30, 40,000 sitting on the sidelines, how much do you need to make to get back in the workforce? The answer is not 40,000, because I can do nothing and make 40,000. The answer is probably closer to 50 or 60, right? If I can do nothing and get 30 or 40 i need i don't

need 41 to get back in the workforce i need about 50 so the welfare state is unquestionably adding to an a really low labor force participation rate and by the way that's been the problem of republicans and democrats democrats far worse but republicans too we can't deny the fact that you know swamp rat rat Republicans have contributed to this problem. He points out some other things here, that under Bush and Obama, labor force participation fell by 4.3 points, meaning 11 million people fell out of the labor force. Folks, that's a lot of people. The country only has 300 million people. To lose 11 million people from the workforce is nothing to sneeze at. That's a lot.

That's a big number. And by the way, for liberals who respond, oh, yeah, well, a lot of it happened under Obama, but it was all retirees falling out of the workforce. Wrong. As Woodhill again points out in the piece. Labor force participation of 25 to 54-year-olds. In other words, not retirees for liberals who have trouble with math. That labor force participation rate fell by 2.5 percentage points so it is not just retirees people in the obama and you know in the end of the bush years too fell out of the workforce in historically high

numbers they just stopped working now the good news. I was going to say good news photo. What? Joe's like, what do you mean? Yeah. I take snapshots and screenshots of things. Right. And it says good news photo. Meaning look at the photo.

But I was going to read good news photo. Because I'm so in his own today. Here's from Lewis Woodhill's piece. Again, it's at the show notes. Here's the good news. Job growth has also improved under Trump. The number of full-time equivalent jobs, Joe, has risen by an average of

213,000 per month. That's great, folks. Yeah. Compared with, just so you have an idea, because you're a liberal friend. Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama. What was Obama's number? 93,000 per month. We're talking about doubling it. Oh, and you say, well, Obama handed him off a's number? 93,000 per month. We're talking about doubling it. Oh, and he said, well, Obama handed him off a great economy. Well, not really.

He handed him off 177,000 per month during his final 17 months, a little over last year in office. So even saying, oh, well, okay, Obama was dealing with a recession, but his last year in office, he handed Trump a real winner. Well, Trump's winning even more. So by any metric, you lose. You get what I'm saying, Joe? Yep. Obama's average job growth per month of full-time equivalent jobs was 93,000. Trump's averaging 213,000. And Obama handed him 177,000.

By any measure, Trump's doing better. Those are just the facts. What you do with them libs is entirely up to you. And he writes Lewis, but wait, there's more. That's him in there. Like I'm making a joke on that. Wait, that's that guy Fritz from the infomercials, right? up to 4.8 percent expansion at this rate during the second quarter would bring trailing 12-month real gdp growth up to 3.27 percent meaning the last trailing 12 months the trump administration economy real gdp is 3.27 percent the comparable number for obama's final calendar quarter in office was only 1.84 percent 1.8 we may need jay's abacus sometime soon, Joe. Yeah, don't worry, not today. So Obama handed him 177,000 jobs, full-time equivalent per month. Trump bumped it to 213,

an average, which is much higher. Obama handed him a real GDP growth of 1.84. Trump's average is 3.27% growth. Those are just the facts, Libs. I know you have a tough time with that stuff, but chew on it. I'm sorry. I don't know what to tell you. Obama, Trump is dramatically improved on what was a dreadful Obama economy. Those are just the facts.

Whether you like it or not is up to you. Again, that article is in the show notes. I encourage you to check it out. All right. Sorry for the delay on this. Whether you like it or not is up to you. Again, that article is in the show notes. I encourage you to check it out. All right. Sorry for the delay on this. I know I got a ton of feedback on the show on the Ben Shapiro show yesterday. He put together a very gracious response.

I want to thank him for that. I thought it was nice for him to take the time. He wrote a piece at the Daily Wire. Basically, a comeback to my show yesterday about his show. I will put that Daily Wire piece in the show notes. I strongly you to read it i tweeted it out um it's good he makes some points in there um some stuff um i yeah i disagree with and uh i don't want to make this like a back and forth between me and again i think for those of you objected to the some said the unnecessarily conciliatory tone i'm sorry i there are people, I'll be candid with you.

There are people in this movement. I don't like Joe knows who they are. I think they're jerks. And I think they do little for the movement. I think they just, you know, they just are vile and they, they,

they, they are another think tankers and anyone who says something without their imprimatur, they, they squash Ben's never been like that with me at all. And although we disagree in a lot of Trump stuff, I think he's done enormously positive work work annihilating liberal nonsense on the economy health care and other folks that's a benefit we don't need to be at each other's throats i'm sorry

and i'm not i'm just not going to do that um he's a good guy and i think he's got a good heart and his heart's in the right place having said that i still think he's wrong on this job and i'm sorry so he addresses my three points in pretty good detail. Again, check the piece out at the show notes. But let me just break down basically what he says. Let me pull up his piece here. So number one, I had said I had some issues with, just to be clear on what his point is, he still questions a lot of the Spygate scenario that Trump team was targeted.

He still questions a lot of the Spygate scenario that Trump team was targeted. And one of the reasons he had said is, well, if that was the case, why wouldn't the government have released damaging information on Trump during the campaign if they were in fact targeting him to hurt him? Does that make sense, Joe? Yeah. That's his premise, which is a reasonable question. In other words, if I'm targeting Joe Armacost, Joe's running for president, I'm the sitting president, I'm weaponizing the FBI and the CIA to target Joe Armacost, then why not release the information during the campaign to make sure Joe doesn't get elected? That's right. But he did. The Obama administration, in conjunction with the Hillary team, did release the information.

Now, in the show notes today, and I was a little confused as to what he meant, he clarified. So this part you can just chalk up to me not understanding, but I said that on yesterday's show, I wasn't clear what he meant by that. Now I get what he's saying. If they were targeting the Trump team,

why wait till after the election? They didn't. They didn't wait till after the election. Matter of fact, they waited till eight days before to do maximum damage i have two tweets linked in my show notes today at bongino.com i strongly encourage you to look at they are tweets by hillary clinton one is a tweet of a speech she gave the speech is interestingly enough about trump and r collusion. And the speech is fascinating. She talks about the intelligence community confirming direct cyber attacks on the U.S. election.

She talks about Trump's extensive business dealings with the Russians and insinuates that these are corrupt. How would she know any of that? Now, you may say, all right, well, that's not really releasing sensitive information. Oh, but as Fritz from the infomercials would say, wait, there's more. And Lewis Woodhill, it is real clear markets. There's another interesting tweet eight days before the election about information. It's fascinating that Hillary Clinton got a hold of.

She tweeted, and I will provide the link again in the show notes, from Hillary Clinton's account eight days before the election. Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump organization to a Russia-based bank. She accompanied it with a press release. How would she know that? By the way, there's credible allegations in multiple reports by multiple people that this Russian-based bank

that was linked to a server or a computer in Trump Tower was the subject of a FISA warrant show against the Trump team in the summer that was denied. How would Hillary know that? So, fair enough question by Ben. Why didn't the FBI or anyone release the info?

By the way, I want to be clear. This is about the Obama administration. I'm not making this all about the FBI. There were multiple players in this that's obvious at this point john brennan gchq um the fbi the obama team susan rice there's this is there are multiple players i'll make this about the fbi so if your question is why didn't the current administration and the Hillary team release information if they were working together to target Trump? The answer is they did. I have the tweet. They did release what

they had. Now you may say, well, why didn't they release more? Because they didn't have anything else. They tried to entrap the Trump team they had the trump tower meeting they had other stuff that in for none of that there was nothing came to fruition there was no evidence they could put out there that would be credibly reported by a media outlet also why didn't they report on the dossier because the dossier could not be corroborated it's obvious so to address these points this is it's this is very simple point number one the information they had about the russian bank and the server in trump town which by the way was entirely debunked it was a spam thing there was no criminal charges leveled from that at all that's a fact there are multiple

reports that that was the a subject of of a Pfizer inquiry that was denied by a judge. Somehow Hillary Clinton gets a hold of that information. How do we know she has a hold of it? Because it's in a tweet eight days before the election. So the answer to your question, why didn't they release the information? They did. What they had and what at a minimum they could corroborate as being basically factually correct, which there was some connection between some Russian bank and a server, but it was a spam thing. It wasn't some kind of illicit communication operation.

Joe, is this making sense? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Because I feel like, and I'm not knocking Ben or anything on this, but I feel like we're getting lost in wonkery, and I get it that details matter, but the storyline matters here too

if the inquiry the line of inquiry Joe in other words is why didn't the Obama team release the information proactively before the election somebody did Hillary Clinton got the information released in a tweet eight days before the link is in the show notes so I

again makes am I is that alright yep okay okay second point he brings up he brings up a point about flynn well why not you know why not bring up the flynn information sooner they didn't have anything on flynn the fact that flynn may have committed a farrah violation with uh the russians was it was not a crime it was not evidence of any collusion or anything like that. The Flynn stuff didn't come out till after the election because the recording of the Flynn call with Kislyak wasn't done till after the election.

Right. And that was the premise of a Logan Act investigation, which has never been investigated in U.S. history. So on the Flynn stuff, there was nothing on Flynn. What were they going to release? There was nothing to release on Flynn that was going to be damaging in relationship to Russian collusion. They didn't have anything.

That didn't come about until after the unmasked recording of Flynn's phone call with the Russians, which was after the election. So you can't, I mean, there's no way to, it didn't happen until after the election, okay? Another thing he takes up, he says, listen, if there was evidence of this entrapment operation, I'm happy to entertain it, but he says, there's not a lot of good evidence

that this Trump Tower meeting was in fact an operation to entrap Trump. I strongly, strongly, strongly dispute that. Now, Ben can dispute the conclusions, which is fine. He's a smart guy. He's a trained lawyer, right? But you cannot, this is not, he says at the end, this is conjecture.

Folks, this is not conjecture. These are facts. You can get a different conclusion from those facts granted and i am not claiming to be clear that this evidence is beyond the reasonable doubt but you cannot claim that there is no evidence at all that there was an operation in place by someone to entrap the trump team the the evidence there that something happened and there's a connection to the Hillary team is there. Yeah. Whether you conclude that the Hillary team guided it.

Yes, I will grant is up to you at this point. Let me give you the actual evidence and you can draw your own conclusions. One, Hillary was already using back channels. One, Hillary was already using back channels. Hillary's team and consiglieres, known associates of Hillary Clinton, were already using back channels to flush information into the FBI for the purpose of weaponizing the FBI to target Trump. That is not in dispute. a Hillary associate has already written an op-ed in the Washington Post admitting that he got information from these dossiers and the work of Christopher Steele, which they passed to the FBI, that none of that's in dispute. Sid Blumenthal, Cody Scheer, already identified in

the House investigation. Known associates of Hillary Clinton have already admitted to preparing dossiers, passing that information on, having that information potentially used by the FBI we already know that Hillary's operation was circumventing back channels because I think one of Ben's challenges are you saying that the FBI

sent those people into the Trump Tower organization? No I'm saying someone did with the intent of making it appear that Trump was colluding with the Russians and that that information was later used by the Democrats. How do I know? Because they're using it now. They're saying now, oh, Trump, they're still saying this was some kind of evidence of collusion. Point number one, again, Hillary was already using back channels we know that point number two the dossier was already being used tactically it was being used tactically

in a court system to get a pfizer warrant against carter page the dossier had not been corroborated how do we know that because the jim comey himself said it was salacious and unverified. That's not how you describe a corroborated document using efficient and well-prepared evidence. The dossier was already being used, a dossier unquestionably prepared by someone paid by lawyers, paid by the Hillary team. The money trail is conclusive, not open for interpretation. The Russian lawyer who shows up at the meeting at Trump Tower is working with the organization paid by Hillary Clinton to gather negative information on Trump.

Again, that's not in dispute. She's working on the Prevazan case with Fusion GPS. She meets with fusion after and before the meeting at trump tower that folks that that's not in dispute that's evidence what you conclude from that evidence is up to you but that is that is real the person she brings in the meeting with her is a guy with significant ties to r intelligence. The guy's lawyer is a friend of the Clintons. That's a fact. This, again, is all evidence.

Now, you may say, oh, it's all circumstantial. Cases are built on significant amounts of circumstantial evidence. The guy she brings with her is a Russian intelligence guy. Her lawyer, the guy's lawyer, is a friend of the Clintons. He's also admitted on the record that he knows people in the Clinton team.

The translator they bring into the meeting. The translator has done work for Hillary's State Department. Of all the translators in the world, this guy shows up. Finally, the Russian lawyer could not get a visa into the United States. They still can't explain how exactly she got a special exemption to get into the United States for this specific meeting. Folks, if the Democrats weren't using this meeting as evidence of their whole case, I would say he was right. All right. Maybe it was just all a coincidence and all these people knew Hillary, knew people who worked hillary or were working for companies working for hillary while they're meeting with

donald trump jr but the democrats use this okay now he brings up another point too about halper the spy saying how well listen you know this isn, let me just get him to see exactly what he said on that. He said that as for the spy targeting team Trump, Stefan Halper, Stephen Halper was asked by the FBI, Stefan Halper was asked by the FBI to meet with Carter Page and Papadopoulos after Papadopoulos bragged to the Australian High Commissioner, Alexander Downer, about Hillary's emails. All right, that's just not true. I addressed that on yesterday's show. Downer has now come out publicly and said that that's not what he said.

He didn't mention anything about emails. That's a critical miss. Because if this entire case is about the Russians hacking the DNC emails and working with the Trump team to get the negative information out there and then you're alleging you opened the investigation and spied on a guy because he mentioned said emails and then the guy you're using says oh no he didn't mention emails that's just not that's that's just I'm sorry but that's just not correct and also he says and after Page organized a visit to Moscow.

I went to Moscow. I'm curious, and I'd like to get, if he has the time to respond, I'd appreciate it. Are you suggesting we should employ human intelligence assets, a CIA asset that found its way to the FBI, to attempt to interact with presidential campaigns based on a conversation about emails that even the source says didn't happen? And secondly, over a trip to Moscow. There's nothing illegal.

I traveled to Moscow. Obama has traveled all over the place when he was a candidate. I don't understand. I just want to make sure we're arguing the same thing here are you suggesting that we should employ human human intelligence assets by our intelligence and law enforcement entities because a guy traveled to moscow and because another guy can't recall a conversation

correctly downers already said it wasn't about the emails he says one more thing he says the fact that he was asked to do so before the formal opening of investigation into trump russian collusion doesn't mean much um that's just not right that's just factually wrong i'm sorry he says in law enforcement scenarios informants are sometimes utilized prior to opening uh investigation openings uh i'm sorry that's not true this is very rare where this happens. And I document this out in my book. I'm running out of time here.

But there is an official, both FBI and Denise McAllister covers this in PJ Media, my co-author, in detail. It's in last week's show notes. There is a procedure for employing the use of human intelligence against United States citizens in a case like this. That procedure is not. This is factually incorrect, stage one. There is an initial assessment. There is a preliminary investigation, all done before there's human intelligence gathering against a U.S. citizen. That's just the way it works.

Besides, in my experience as a federal agent, I've never seen anything like that. works besides in my experience as a federal agent i've never seen anything like that before even having a case file open you're employing a human intelligence asset against an opposition political campaign team member i i'm sorry but that i i've never heard of such a thing in my life if you can show me evidence that's happened anywhere before in u. history, I'll happily consider it. But that is simply not accurate at all. All right. What is it? One more point. Demnick gets it.

He gets into some semantic stuff. Listen, I wasn't taking issue with his comments about what do you call about Trump saying on Lester Holt that he fired Comey because of Russia. I was taking issue with him saying he literally said that. He did not literally say that. I quoted him. So that's, again, I'm sorry, but that's just not literally what he said. And there's, you know, Trump tends to speak sometime in word salads. I'm not apologizing for him, just saying. He makes disjointed statements, he marries them together, and there seems to be connectivity. Trump did not say in that Lester Holden interview, the quote's the quote. There's no changing it that he fired him because of Russia. He said there was no good time to fire him and then he mentions the Russia thing being a hoax. his mind or something like that and you prove that but otherwise there's no evidence you can show me that he said that because he didn't say that that's just a fact you can interpret it a

different way but that's your interpretation i i don't interpret it that way if he said it i'll happily admit it but that's not literally what he said at all and then i i'm confused about another argument he makes i in one point uh Bennett said that, you know what, Trey Gowdy said they weren't investigating the Trump campaign. Gowdy did say that, that they're not investigating Trump, not investigating the campaign. But that's not true. Gowdy's not telling the truth.

Comey himself had specifically said they were investigating Russian government contacts between him telling the truth. Comey himself had specifically said they were investigating Russian government contacts between him and the campaign. And he, I don't know, I'm confused. He says, he tries to make an analogy between, it's like saying they wiretapped the Russian government contacts with Trump Tower rather than Trump.

I don't get, I'm confused by that. I'm just making a simple point. Gowdy said they were not investigating the Trump campaign. That's just not true. And there's no verbal judo that's going to make it true. Everybody knows they were investigating the Trump campaign. The FBI director himself said it in March 20, 2017 testimony.

I quoted the testimony. That's not, there's not a, there's, there's, that's the point. So again, I appreciate his commentary. I will put it up in the show notes. I tweeted it out yesterday and I appreciate him getting back to me and I'm glad we can have a pretty cool and candid conversation about it. It's just an important issue. And I do want to emphasize that I think he's doing really terrific work.

We'll continue to quote his work. I always loved his debate with the young turd, with St. Cougar. That's one of my personal faves. He does great work. I always loved his debate with the young turd, with St. Cougar. That's one of my personal faves. He does great work. But I guess we'll continue to disagree on this. Again, I don't want to get into extended back and forth, and we've both got other stuff going on too. But I think his piece made some good points, but I think some of them are just simply not accurate. There was no conversation about emails. That is definitely not standard operating procedure at all to employ human assets against a presidential campaign without following specific DOJ and FBI stepped procedures for employing human intelligence, no less in a politically sensitive campaign. Secret Service. If they involved a sensitive local councilman,

you had to notify the AUSA first because it was political sensitive. If he got his tax checks stolen to employ a human intelligence asset, in my experience in the federal investigative domain, against a presidential campaign who was a CIA asset moving over into the law enforcement arena? No.

No, no. You're not doing that without opening a case. I'm sorry. That's just... That is definitely 100%. I will go to the grave on it, not SOP. And you are not doing that without some kind of official case opening if you're not trying to hide something. No way. All right, folks, thanks again for tuning in.

Went over a little bit today. I really appreciate it. You just heard the Dan Bongino Show. Get more of Dan online anytime at conservativereview.com. You can also get Dan's podcasts on iTunes or SoundCloud. And follow Dan on Twitter 24-7 at DBonGino.