RUSH: I just received a tweet that I don’t believe. I’m scratching my head about this. So I’m in the process of running this down, but it looks legit. The way I’m looking at this, this is bombshell, and the fact the New York Times is reporting this is something I can’t believe, because it undercuts their position the past 2-1/2 years on this whole Trump-Russia collusion business. But first, before I give you the details, it’s about the Papadopoulos story.

Now, one thing that I have not mentioned when I’ve told you the Papadopoulos story all the many times I’ve told you, is that a woman is involved — a seductress of sorts — who was presented to Papadopoulos by both Mifsud and Stefan Halper. I think it was Halper’s assistant, a teaching assistant, a professor’s assistant, and she was used as a lure. Here’s this young guy. He’s 24 years old, not married at the time — and, man, they’re dazzling him.

They’re treating him great, because he’s on the Trump foreign policy advisory team. They’re treating him like a really big guy, and they’re the ones that tell him that the Russians have 30,000 Hillary emails, and they’re arranging speaking engagements for him and paying him first class airfare and hotel and a $3,000 stipend to come over and make the speech in the U.K. They’re really working him, and part of the (sigh) lure was one of the teaching assistants of one of the professors.

It was either Mifsud or Halper. Now, Joseph Mifsud and Stefan Halper both interacted with Papadopoulos on this whole scheme, if you will. But one of them had this female teacher who they sent to have drinks with Papadopoulos. Think, you know, honeypot-type thing. I’ve just left her out of the stories because she was an incidental figure. She was window dressing. But she was a key ingredient in helping them lure Papadopoulos into the purpose they had for him.

By the way, I don’t say any of this to insult Papadopoulos. I don’t want anybody to misunderstand. I’m not insulting Papadopoulos. I’m not impugning him in any way, shape, manner, or form with any of the stories I’ve told about him. I’m not calling him any names. I’m not suggesting he shouldn’t have been duped. It’s entirely understandable what happened to him. He went to jail for 14 days for lying to the FBI about one of the dates of these meetings!

At any rate, here’s the New York Times tweet from one of their reporters named Charlie Savage. Wait a minute. Charlie Savage may not be a reporter, but two other reporters at the Times are mentioned. Anyway, here’s the story. “Breaking: A woman posing as a professor’s assistant who had drinks in September 2016 with George Papadopolous [sic], a Trump campaign aide, had been sent by the FBI.”

This is a tantamount admission that it was the FBI that was in on the scheme involving Papadopoulos, which those of you in this audience know full well is true, because it was the FBI who planted the news about Russia’s possession of Hillary’s emails with both Mifsud and Halper. And then they arranged for Papadopoulos to have drinks with Alexander Downer, the ambassador from Australia, in which Papadopoulos repeated what he’d been told.

And then Downer tells the FBI, just to close the loop, and acts like nobody knew it. “Hey, this guy from the Trump campaign says that the Russians have Hillary email.” That supposedly started the investigation. Well, there’s always been this honeypot part of the story, and now the New York Times apparently (Adam Goldman and Mark Mazzetti are the reporters) is saying that the FBI sent this woman to have drinks with Papadopoulos, a professor’s assistant.

That would be either Mifsud or Halper. This is tantamount to the FBI admitting the FBI ran the scam on Papadopoulos, and I’m asking myself… This is all I’ve got on this, and I’m asking myself, “What in the world…? Why would the FBI undercut 2-1/2 years of reporting?” The New York Times version of this is Trump colluded. They’ve had 2-1/2 years of stories three times a day: “Trump colluded! All these forces are admitting it was true.”

They just didn’t have the evidence yet, but they were gonna get it. It’s clear it’s what happened. Now, all of a sudden, the FBI was involved in running a spy on Papadopoulos? So you see, we’re still tracking this down. But this one is really hard to believe. So I’m leaving myself an out here for maybe misunderstanding this ’til I can get… (interruption) I’m not misunderstanding it? (interruption) You’ve seen it? (interruption) You are a reading the story. So Snerdley is reading the story now.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Okay. Folks, I have this New York Times story here, and I’m digesting it. I’m gonna have it in depth for you at the monologue section of the next hour. But the headline: “F.B.I. Sent Investigator Posing as Assistant to Meet With Trump Aide in 2016 — George Papadopoulos was the target of an F.B.I. investigation into connections between the campaign and Russia.”

Now, at first glance it appears that the New York Times is admitting that the FBI was running a scam. That’s not what they’re doing. What the New York Times is getting out front of this all of a sudden revelation, and they’re trying to acknowledge the FBI had to do this. This is a last-ditch effort to sustain the collusion story.

They’re saying that Papadopoulos was engaged in nefarious activity. They had to spend a spy in there to keep track of this guy, and they sent this honeypot woman, this professor’s assistant.

“The conversation at a London bar in September 2016 took a strange turn when the woman sitting across from George Papadopoulos, a Trump campaign adviser, asked a direct question: Was the Trump campaign working with Russia?”

They were setting him up. If they thought that, they should have been telling the campaign. So this breaking news tweet is made to look like the New York Times all of a sudden has discovered that the FBI was in fact spying on the Trump campaign. And they are admitting that.

But their story is cover. They are suggesting that it was necessary. I think this is a story in advance of whatever eventually is produced by Barr in an investigation into the investigation. This is the New York Times attempting to protect the FBI by dredging up this whole Papadopoulos story.

I think the original tweet, which is what I had is a little misleading. It’s not the New York Times capitulating and finally admitting that the FBI was spying on Trump. The story attempts to justify the FBI spying on Trump, I think.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I think I figured out what they’re trying to get in front of here, folks, with this New York Times story today. It’s intriguing. They’re trying to put the genie back in the bottle in one way of analyzing this. So hang on and all will become clear in mere moments when we return.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Okay. Here you are, folks, on the cutting edge of societal evolution. I think what’s going on is that there is panic beginning to settle in on the left about William Barr’s upcoming investigation into the investigation. Now, that may sound, “Well, yeah, Rush, you’ve told us that.” But new things continue to happen that back up the theory. And it’s getting kind of deceitful.

This is such an intricately woven web that was put together to try to prevent Trump from winning and then to unseat him. This is one of the most deeply woven scandals that I have come across, and to think that much of it was largely planned and then executed, some of it happened improvisational style.

Greetings, and welcome back.

Here’s what happened today. And I got a tweet. All it was was a tweet suggesting that there was a breaking story in the New York Times admitting that the FBI had sent a honeypot, a woman to spy on George Papadopoulos. So I said, “What’s going on? Why would the FBI be undercutting two years of work here by admitting the FBI was spying?” So I got the whole story after some time, and that’s not what they’re doing.

One other element here. The woman involved, to those of us who have been devoted to understanding the Papadopoulos branch of this collusion story and the reason that I have been drilling down in it is because for the longest time the FBI and all these people tried to convince us that it was Papadopoulos running off at the mouth in London that started the investigation.

That’s why this is so consuming to me, I just want you to know, because it’s a lie! It did not start with Papadopoulos, and they planted the information that Papadopoulos was discussing with people. So they set it up as a phony so-called reason to spy on Trump! And that’s not at all what happened.

Now, the story today says that there was a female, very seductive, attractive female who was a professor’s assistant who was sent by the FBI to have drinks with Papadopoulos in September of 2016. It’s in June, July of 2016 that Papadopoulos was telling people that the Russians had Hillary emails. Well, as I say, the New York Times thinks they’ve got breaking news here because they don’t think anybody knows about the woman.

Those of us who have enmeshed ourselves in this know all about it. Her name is Turk. Her name is Azra Turk or some such name, and she works for Halper. She is a professor’s assistant for Stefan Halper who is one of the informants the FBI used to try to spy on the Trump campaign to create Russian collusion.

So the New York Times story headline: “FBI Sent Investigator Posing as Assistant to Meet With Trump Aide in 2016.” You read the headline and say, “Wait a minute. Why is the New York Times all of a sudden throwing water on two and a half years of coverage?” Because two and a half years of coverage, they reported that Trump was colluding, and the FBI was trying to track it down and run it down.

Now they’re running a story the FBI actually sent a spy to talk to Papadopoulos? Well, when you read the story further, you find that they’re trying to get out in front of this. This story is written in a way to justify the FBI sending this honeypot to talk to Papadopoulos. This is not a story accusing the FBI. This is a story covering for the FBI. And the original tweet did not look like it was a story covering for the FBI, but rather accusing them.

“FBI Sent Investigator Posing as Assistant to Meet With Trump Aide in 2016.” And it begins this way. “George Papadopoulos, a former Trump campaign aide, was the target of an FBI investigation into connections between the campaign and Russia.

“The conversation at a London bar in September 2016 took a strange turn when the woman sitting across from George Papadopoulos asked a direct question: Was the Trump campaign working with Russia? … The F.B.I. sent her to London as part of the counterintelligence inquiry opened that summer to better understand the Trump campaign’s links to Russia.

“The American government’s affiliation with the woman, who said her name was Azra Turk, is one previously unreported detail of an operation that has become a political flash point –” It’s not unreported! It’s been known by all of us that have been looking into this. It’s the first time her name has shown up in the New York Times and this is what’s fascinating about this.

They are providing cover for the FBI here. Because they know two things: The inspector general, Mr. Horowitz, is looking into the FISA application process, how that all happened, and Barr has signaled that his investigation actually has already begun, maybe in an informal, pro forma way. And here, I think, folks, is the actual thing that they are trying to get ahead of. This is a little pull quote from the story.

“The London operation yielded no fruitful information. But FBI officials have called the bureau’s activities in the months before the election both legal and carefully considered under extraordinary circumstances. They are now under scrutiny as part of an investigation by Michael Horowitz, the Justice Department inspector general. He could make the results public in May or June, Barr has said.”

So it’s clear what’s happening here. Azra Turk has been long known as a seductress that was used by Halper and Mifsud to lure in Papadopoulos. The objective of this has always been to get a Trump campaign official to tell anybody that the Trump campaign knew that Russia had 30,000 emails. It was Joseph Mifsud first and then Stefan Halper who told Papadopoulos this — and both of them are FBI — well, Halper is an FBI informant.

People are working overtime to try to say that Mifsud is a Russian agent because that would make it even better for them if Papadopoulos was talking to a Russian agent, that would be collusion. But they haven’t been able to ratchet that down. Then the Australian ambassador is scheduled to go have drinks with Papadopoulos and Papadopoulos mentions, “Hey, did you know –” I’m paraphrasing this “– that the Russians have 30,000 emails of Hillary’s?”

So Downer, on schedule and as intended, calls the FBI, who first told it to Papadopoulos. The whole thing was to set up a pretext whereby the FBI could theoretically begin its investigation because somebody in the Trump campaign was bragging about the fact that they knew in the Trump campaign that the Russians had Hillary emails. Papadopoulos didn’t know this until the FBI told him that.

The sexpot, the honeypot angle of this, she was always part of the mix, she was always hanging around with Halper when Papadopoulos met her couple, three times. He was not married at the time. And she was being used as young women are used to magnetically attract, 24-, 25-year-old young, virile men. I mean, they were showing Papadopoulos the world. They were showing him what he could be part of now that he was part of the Trump campaign.

He could be international traveler, a lecturer, could be earning fees for his remarks and so forth. It was heady days for Papadopoulos. He’s a nice guy. Don’t missunderstand. I’m not trying to be critical in any way of Papadopoulos.

Now I want to go to audio sound bite number 39 and 40. James Clapper out of nowhere shows up on CNN today. Brianna Keilar, the infobabe, said, “Attorney General Barr says the term spying does not have a pejorative connotation. What do you say to that, Mr. Clapper?”

CLAPPER: I do think it’s a pejorative term. It connotes illegality, rogue operations, this sort of thing. It’s not a term of art that’s used within the Intelligence Committee. And I always used to cringe whenever I’d see my name in the headlines someplace where it says “head spy testifies” or something. What made it pejorative particularly is, of course, is in the context of what the president has been saying about spying on his campaign, which in my view is not true.

RUSH: I’m telling you, this is what this is all about. When Barr said in one of his recent appearances before the Senate committee, “Oh, I think there was spying on the Trump campaign.” And then when he said he was gonna get to the bottom of it, I’ll tell you, folks, it’s hard to describe. It’s not the rats leaving the ship. It’s worse than that.

They’re starting to circle the wagons now. That’s what this New York Times story is today. They’re trying to give the FBI cover while admitting that the FBI was running an operation against Papadopoulos. That’s what you all need to conclude.

The New York Times story today, no matter how they try to position or flavor it, is admitting that the FBI was running a spy operation on Papadopoulos with Halper and with the woman and with Mifsud. They’re trying to put the genie back in the bottle here and say that this justified the FBI doing this, but there’s another element to this that I beg you to remember, and that’s John Brennan of the CIA. The CIA cannot operate domestically in the United States legally. Stefan Halper has connections to MI6.

He’s best buds with a guy who used to run MI6. The Cambridge professorette is linked in many ways to British spy activities, and one of the reasons that all of these documents that would explain all of this haven’t been declassified is because the British have asked the president not to do so, so that our allied relationship is not damaged because the Brits were involved. Now, Trump has alluded to that, and you’ll see the reaction in the Drive-Bys.

“Trump’s insane! Trump’s losing his mind! Trump’s off the rocker now, trying to say the British….” The Brits were involved, and the way it happened was the Brits would run this Papadopoulos stuff by, and then they would report to Brennan. Brennan would then talk to Comey, and that closed the loop, and that’s how the FBI was able to act on all this stuff with Brennan as the go-between. Brennan was the contact for British intelligence, and then Brennan would confer what he knew over to Comey.

Now, here’s one more Clapper. Out of the woodwork, they’re bringing Clapper up to talk about spying again? The next question. Well, let’s see. John Cornyn asked, “Why didn’t the Obama administration do more about Russian interference way back in 2014 when they were warned by the intelligence community that this was gonna be an issue, that Russia was gonna try to influence the election? You guys knew this in 2014. Why didn’t you do anything about it instead of letting it happen?” (Snort!) The question answers itself, but I want you to listen to Clapper’s answer. This is the key to this.

Clapper: There’s a long… (mutters) long, long history of Soviet and then Russian interference in our election process going back at least to the 1960s. So unfortunately, you know, there’s a (mutters) certain ambient level of Russian activity that we kind of anticipated. For me, through ’15 and ’16, y’know, we began to see and we gained more and more insight into what the Russians were — were doing and the magnitude of it and — and certainly by the summer of ’16 it was very, very disturbing, certainly to me personally. (muttering) Uh, I’ve seen a lot of bad stuff in 50 years in intelligence but nothing that bothered me this really — as much as this. So, y-yeah, speaking personally, I would — I would have… I was an advocate for doing more earlier and more aggressive. But to say the Obama administration did nothing is not true. For one (snickers), the president — unlike our current president — directly confronted very pointedly, uh, Putin and told him, “Cut it out.”

RUSH: Are you kidding? Are you really kidding me? So Clapper here is repeating, “What do you mean, we didn’t do anything about it? We called Putin! Our president did more than Trump did. He called Putin and told him to cut it out.” (Snort!) They’re getting nervous, is the bottom line. Now he’s saying, “Oh, the Russians have been spying since the 1960s.” It isn’t any big deal? “Oh, no, the Russians have been trying to influence our elections since the 1960s!”

Wait a minute! You guys have been acting like this never happened before until Trump. (impression) “Oh, no, no, no. The Russians have been trying to interfere in our elections since the 1960s, but I’ll tell you I never saw it get as bad as it did in 2015, 2014! (grumbling) I — I — I was really getting nervous about it.” Why didn’t you do anything to stop it? If it was that bad, why didn’t you do more than just have Obama to tell Putin to “cut it out”? Do you realize, folks… In all of this, do you see they’re continuing this illusion?

There was no collusion. There wasn’t anything going on between Trump and Russia. They can’t let go of it, and the reason now is they’re trying to reposition. They’re trying to justify everything they did — sending Clapper out today, the New York Times story today justifying the FBI running the operation on Papadopoulos — ’cause they are scared to death of what Barr is doing. Now you’ve got members of Congress saying, “Barr’s lying! Barr’s should be impeached! Barr should resign! Barr’s scum. Barr’s this and that.”

They are getting… Again, for two-three years, they got up every day thinking that was gonna be the day where the bombshell would hit and Trump is gone. Then the Mueller report! That was gonna be the big, big, big silver bullet and it was gonna have the icing on the cake and it was gonna be everything. But it’s nothing. Literally nothing. And they are beside themselves. Now there’s a serious attempt to find out just what the hell went on here.

Here’s Clapper even opening himself up. (impression) It was really getting bad in 2015! I never seen this that bad. (muttering) I… Even for me personally… (muttering) It was really, really bad, and I… (muttering)” You didn’t do a damn thing to stop it, did you Clapper, old buddy, old pal? “Well, we did. We did more than more than Trump did. We, uh… We, uh… Obama called Putin and said, ‘Cut it out.'”

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: One final note on this. George Papadopoulos has tweeted: “I agree with everything in this superb article except ‘Azra Turk’ [the honeypot] clearly was not FBI. She was CIA… “Azra Turk was CIA, and she was sent there on behalf of the CIA and Turkey because he was involved with Israel in offshore energy projects with which Turkey was competing. She was actually sent there to perpetuate the idea that the Trump campaign was colluding with Russia — and, secondarily, gain information from him that would help Turkey in the energy business.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Okay. Just to wrap this up, folks, the FBI, New York Times story today, there’s no question that it is trying to get ahead of the Horowitz report, which is looking into all of this. And the money quote from the piece: “It is unclear whether Mr. Horowitz will find fault with the F.B.I.’s decision to have Ms. Turk, whose real name is not publicly known, meet with Mr. Papadopoulos.”

That says it all right there. It’s not known whether Mr. Horowitz will find fault. They can’t help but find fault. There was no reason. This woman — and he thinks that she’s CIA. He thinks that she was sent by the CIA — and routinely asked about whether or not they knew any connection between the Trump campaign and Russia. She was asking him this point-blank.

And then after he met with Azra Turk, he went and had a drink with Halper, and Halper started asking, “George, is there any truth to this business that the Trump campaign is working with Russia?” And it got so bad that Papadopoulos says he left one of the meetings with Stefan Halper because he wouldn’t let go of this. There’s no question what was going on here.

You know, it’s the offense-defense thing. We’ve been on defense for the two years that they’ve been running this scam operation, with Barr saying that we’re gonna start investigating the investigation, everybody now is on offense that was on defense.

We’re now on offense, they’re on defense, and you can see them behaving in that way. Sending Clapper out today on CNN for no earthly reason. This New York Times story out of the blue, which is a CYA attempt if there ever was one.