Former Trump campaign advisor George Papadopolous has often said that he made it clear to FBI informant Stefan Halper that it would be ‘treasonous’ to use emails stolen by the Russians regarding Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.
It apparently didn’t matter. If the information Papadopolous claims he gave Halper was withheld from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court when the FBI initiated the operation to collect information on Trump campaign advisors then that is a violation of the courts and a criminal act.
The information would have shown that Papadopolous never once intended to work with or collude with Russians. Those transcripts are apparently part of the top secret classified information now in the hands of Department of Justice William Barr.
Papadopolous, as well as former Trump campaign advisor Carter Page, told this reporter last October, that Halper who had approached both men separately – was told by both Page and Papadoplous that they would never collude with Russia during the 2016 election. Neither men realized at the time that Halper was apparently recording their conversations and was an informant for the FBI.
Those private conversations with Halper may hold the key to some of the most important questions lawmakers: Did the FBI withhold exculpatory evidence from America’s most secret court? And if so, what was it?
During an interview on Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo former South Carolina Congressman Trey Gowdy addressed that very issue. Bartiromo revealed that she spoke with Papadopolous Saturday night to prepare for her interview with Gowdy.
Papadopolous reiterated to Bartiromo that he told Halper when asked if he would use any information from the Russians against Hillary Clinton in the 2016 campaign
“Are you kidding that’s treasonous, people get hanged for stuff like this…that’s nuts, that’s treason,” Bartiromo said Papadopolous told her.
Gowdy Says There Is More Than One Secret Transcript
Trey Gowdy said if the FBI withheld of those secret transcripts from the FISA court there could be serious violations and repercussions against those who did.
“Only if you want a justice system that’s fair, that’s the only reason it should be produced to the court if you want a justice system that treats people justly and fairly,” said Gowdy. “That what you just described is text book exculpatory information. It tends to show the person did not commit a crime, a crime by the way, Maria, he was never charged with. Papadopolous was charged with a process crime but never with colluding with Russia.”
“But it also speaks to what the FBI and the department were doing back in 2016: Was their target Russia or was their target the Trump campaign? We’re not going to know until we get the transcripts public,” Gowdy said. “The one you referenced is a single transcript, there are going to be others.”
Papadopoulos was charged with a process crime and pled guilty to Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel in September for one count of lying to the FBI. He was sentenced to 14 days in prison. He said that he made it perfectly clear to an undercover bureau operative and British based professor Stefan Halper, that there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
FBI Asked Papadopolous Wife To Wear A Wire To Entrap Him
Further, Papadopolous and his wife Simona Mangiante, also said that the FBI tried to coerce her to wear a wire to “entrap” her husband.
Papadopolous stated that Congress “probably has transcripts” of meetings he had that would prove he was spied on by the FBI.
Papadopoulos said his wife was targeted by the FBI because she had information on another FBI informant, the academic Joseph Mifsud, who is connected to the Italian government and whose attorney has now come forward to reveal Mifsud was working with the FBI.
“But what we believed that they really targeted her for is, we believe she knew all about Joseph Mifsud’s connections to the Italian government and his connections in Europe, which we just found out today that … the prime minister … just fired the heads of three intel agencies in Italy. And I think it has to do with the person, Joseph Mifsud, who the president and Devin Nunes and other people have been asking the government in Italy to examine a lot more because he’s actually at the core of this entire scam,” Papadopoulos said.