The Papadopoulos Transcripts--Why They Matter

Maria Bartiromo had a two part interview today with retired Congressman Trey Gowdy. We've already referred to the second part of that interview in which the two discussed what happened with John Ratcliffe's bid to become the new DNI. In the first part of the interview the topic was George Papadopoulos. Specifically, the topic was the existence of a transcript of a conversations between Papadopoulos and CIA/FBI/MI6 asset Stephan Halper--and why that transcript has not been released publicly. Gowdy, of course, is one of the Congressmen who has seen that transcript, and he assured Bartiromo that there was nothing so highly classified in it that would prevent its public disclosure.

Gowdy, in his remarks, emphasized that there is exculpatory evidence in the transcript and that the FBI hid this exculpatory information from the FISA court.

Bartiromo, for her part, informed Gowdy that she had spoken last night with Papadopoulos and that Papadopoulos had provided her with his recollection and account of his conversation with Halper:

Papadopoulos told Bartiromo that the transcript of his conversation with Halper will prove he didn’t take the bait when Halper brought up [the subject of obtaining] Hillary’s ‘hacked emails’ [from "the Russians"].

Papadopoulos told Stephan Halper that it would be treason to accept help from the Russians, according to Bartiromo. 

“Are you kidding me? That’s treason! People get hanged for stuff like that! I would never do something like that,” Papadopoulos allegedly told Stefan Halper in a September 2016 meeting in London.

Gowdy again emphasized the exculpatory nature of Papadopoulos' statements to Halper. Even though Gowdy was unable to confirm Papadopoulos' account in detail, he essentially confirmed it by not qualifying it in any way, instead exclaiming:

Andrew Weissmann: How Corrupt Does The Russia Hoax Get?

Today has been an incredible Big Story day in the ongoing saga of the Russia Hoax. This morning we had Paul Sperry's revelations about James Comey's targeting of President Trump for removal for clearly political motivations--there simply was no case against Trump and everyone involved with this coup attempt knew it. This evening we have John Solomon's absolutely stunning--no other word fits--revelations of Andrew Weissmann's own corrupt attempt to frame President Trump: How Mueller deputy Andrew Weissmann's offer to an oligarch could boomerang on DOJ. Let's start at the beginning.

As we all know, at the time Robert Mueller was appointed Special Counsel it was already well known that the FBI investigation on which the Special Counsel mandate was explicitly based (in Rod Rosenstein's authorization letter) was utterly bogus, because it was based on the already discredited Steele "dossier." The question facing Mueller and his Deputy Andrew Weissmann--whom most regard as the true head of the Mueller inquisition--was clearly: How to proceed in the face of this lack of evidence of any wrongdoing on the part of the president? One approach would be to seek to provoke Trump into a misstep that could be called "obstruction," but that would be time consuming and uncertain of success. Slogging through the Russia Hoax allegations faced the same uncertainty. What about a quick strike at Trump? Remember, the true aim was to force Trump out--whether by impeachment or resignation hardly mattered, and resignation was probably preferable because it would be quicker. But how to force the issue?