Nunes: If Joseph Misfud is a Russian agent, it would be one of the biggest intelligence scandals

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Nunes: If Joseph Misfud is a Russian agent, it would be one of the biggest intelligence scandals

Rep. Devin Nunes discusses his letter raising questions about academic center of origin of Russia probe and requesting documents on Joseph Misfud.

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," May 3, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, HOST: Welcome to “Hannity.”

We start tonight with a Fox News alert. Tonight, major breaking news, a bombshell. New letter from Congressman Devin Nunes surrounding a shady foreign figure named Joseph Mifsud who is closely linked to the origins of the FBI's Russia witch hunt.

Now, Mueller's report portrayed him as an academic with ties to Russian intelligence. But Congressman Nunes' letter, well, it makes clear he may also have connections to Western governments. That raises many questions about just how the Russian investigation got started, whether Western intelligence services, including our own, may have been compromised, whether intelligence gathering was outsourced to bypass American laws.

Now, Congressman Nunes will be here in just a moment with a lot more.

Also tonight, we will show you how James Comey, Hillary Clinton, the Obama administration and, of course, their best friends, the media mob, worked in concert to create and perpetrate a hoax against Donald Trump and you, we, the American people.

Before we get to all that breaking news, I want you to listen closely because I know you will not hear this good news from any other news source. Today's economic news is more than phenomenal. We have an economy that is roaring and booming like never before.

Look at these numbers. They speak for themselves, unemployment 3.6 percent. That is a 49-year low. We are witnessing the lowest Hispanic unemployment ever in our history.

We're seeing historic lows for women in the workplace. African-Americans, Asian-Americans, youth unemployment, record levels of jobs for high school dropouts and those without a college education. Nationwide income is seeing significant increases. That means, yes, the forgotten men and women.

The stock market is soaring.

The U.S. is now a net exporter of oil and gas. We're energy independent for the first time in 75 years. And that, of course, a major national security win, by the way, against the hostile actor Putin and hostile regime of Russia and their oil-based oligarchy. In fact, exports of American liquefied natural gas to Europe is now increased by nearly 300 percent after the president negotiated new trade deals, in this case with the E.U.

And while Europe's economy -- look at this -- last two quarters, their GDP growth, wow, a whoppingly low 0.4 percent following 0.2 percent. That's in the last two quarters, the last six months. Our first quarter growth, 3.2 percent during a government shutdown, as said today, the envy of the world.

Now in the Trump economy, everybody wins. American greatness is returning. So, with the 2020 election right around the corner, what is the Democratic message? Fear, division, the world ending in 10 years? No more oil, gas, planes or a combustion engine?

In 2020, this will be a huge choice election. Are we better off than we were four years ago? Is Biden going to defend the economic record of eight years of him and Obama?

OK. Also in the meantime, we've got to get to the bottom of what was the single biggest abuse of power scandal in this country's history? Now, for years, this year's most sensitive and powerful intelligence tools were turned against its own citizens by a few, not the majority. The Trump campaign, the Trump transition team, we now know it is now beyond all doubt, incontrovertible evidence. They were spied on by the Obama administration not once but over and over again.

American rights were trampled. The Constitution shredded. Lives were ruined. A partisan special counsel witch hunt divided this country for almost two years.

In the end, thankfully, truth prevailed. They lost. No collusion. The left's long con hoax, conspiracy theories, whether they can admit it or not, the attorney general confirmed this week they are over.

But stage two, the second act, begins officially as he said this week, everything we have been talking about for two years, the attorney general will begin investigating and already has. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT: There has been no president in history that has given what I have given in terms of looking at just a total witch hunt. I call it the Russian hoax, it turned out to be. No collusion, no obstruction. It was a total hoax.

And yet I was transparent. We gave 1.4 million documents. We gave hundreds of people.

I let him interview the lawyer, the White House lawyer for 30 hours. Think of that, 30 hours. I let him interview other people. I didn't have to let them interview anybody.

I didn't have to give any documents. I was totally transparent because I know I did nothing wrong. It turned out I did nothing wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Not once did this administration invoke executive privilege. They could have literally done it every step of the way. They did not.

And the search for justice is only beginning as confirmed by the attorney general this week. Operation Crossfire Hurricane -- it is now officially the beginning of Operation Boomerang, because while these bad actors at the highest levels of our government were steadfastly accusing the president of misdeeds, they were the ones committing a litany of real crimes, which will be proven.

President Trump is calling it now a scandal bigger than Watergate, I'd say way bigger. And, of course, we are not talking about the rank and file, the 99 percent of investigators in the premiere law enforcement agency in the world, the FBI, premier intelligence agency, the CIA, they're as outraged as we are.

Instead, we're talking about a few, select power-hungry, self-aggrandizing, those that view themselves as super-patriots who think we don't know better. Those that literally rigged an investigation into Hillary and tried to rig an election and set up the Trump campaign with an insurance policy and tried to take down the elected president of the United States.

Let's with the basic and fundamental truth, it's so simple, even these lazy, overpaid members of the so-called media, so-called journalist, so- called newsrooms, that 99 percent of them that got it wrong and lied to everybody. The Trump campaign was spied on. That evidence is incontrovertible.

"The New York Times" even admitting something this program has now been covering for years, with the report that now details how Comey's FBI, in fact, it's deeper than we thought. They sent an undercover investigator posing as a research assistant, meeting with the Trump aide George Papadopoulos in 2016. By the way, the undercover agent set up the meeting in London between herself, a 30-year-old blond, making it known she's available with Papadopoulos and Stefan Halper, who we talked about at length, who is working as a secret FBI informant.

This discussion was supposed to involve foreign policy strategies but it soon took a weird, unusual turn. It was all about Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, and Trump, Trump, Trump, and whether the Trump campaign was actually working with Vladimir Putin. And that's not at all.

It's more bizarre. The undercover agent was apparently trying to flirt and seduce the Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos. He is here tonight to tell us his story in detail, and so will Carter Page, by the way, who's also spied on by Halper and Sam Clovis as well.

Now, the FBI was spying on Page's phone calls and emails after he was wiretapped pursuant to a FISA warrant, as we all know by now, that was first signed by James Comey based on Hillary's bought and paid for Russian dirty dossier that even "The New York Times" is suggesting might have been Russian disinformation. The same dossier put together with Russian lies and Google searches by a former spy, British MI6 officer, Christopher Steele, a document that according to the "New York Times" could itself been disinformation from Russia.

And now, it's a subject of an investigation currently being conducted by the attorney general. Remember, he said this week, he is not changing his mind on Mueller. It's over. It's done. It's finished.

Anything from hereon in is noise. What he says now is what the second act is going to be all about. What we have been telling you.

Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN CORNYN, R-TX: How do we know that the Steele dossier is not itself evidence of Russian disinformation campaign? Knowing what we know now, the allegations made were second-hand, hearsay or unverified? Can you say with confidence that the Russian -- that the Steele dossier was not part of the Russian disinformation campaign?

WILLIAM BARR, ATTORNEY GENERAL: No, I can't state that with confidence. And that's one of the areas that I'm reviewing. I'm concerned about it and I don't think it's entirely speculative.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: This is only the tip of the iceberg between the dossier, the phony Russia dossier investigation. We have Barr's investigation into spying, FISA abuse, FISA court fraud, that investigation, the investigation in leaking, so many other probes. And why did they rig the Hillary Clinton investigation?

In other words, we must get to the bottom of what was the biggest abuse of power scandal in history. If we do not, we can no longer consider ourselves a constitutional republic. We will then be a banana republic.

The vice president of the United States is vowing to do just that. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT: We've got to get to the bottom of how all of this started. I mean, the American people have a right to know how this investigation even began. And as the attorney general said when testifying before Congress, there was spying and we need to understand why there was.

INTERVIEWER: Were you spied on?

PENCE: Whether there was a sufficient predicate. Well, I think we need to find out. We really need to get to the bottom of how this all began. And if there was a violation of the rules, if the law was broken, the people that were responsible need to be held accountable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: And by the way, get this -- hell has frozen over. You even a host at conspiracy TV MSNBC -- they might be starting to see the light. Only one, though -- don't -- let's not get carried away -- now actually agreeing with the vice president that spying occurred. Remember, there's been nothing but conspiracy theories every second, minute, hour of every day for two years on this conspiracy TV channel.

Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let me start with a central question in a lot of people's minds last night as they first read it and as they read this morning. How is this not spying?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, it depends on your definition of spying.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Now, this has serious ramifications for the 2020 election. By the way, not looking good for creepy crazy Uncle Joe, after all, he was in the meetings with Comey, and Obama and Rice about the dirty dossier at the height of the administration's spying. What did he know, when did he know it?

And let's not forget about Biden's incredibly shady dealings with the Ukraine, which we chronicle last night. According to "The New York Times," he did use his position. As the vice president, he threatened to withhold our money, the taxpayer's money, a billion dollars in U.S. loan guarantees, if Ukraine's leaders did not in six hours dismiss the country's top prosecutor, prosecutor who we know is investigating corruption accusations at a Ukrainian energy firm where Biden's son served on the board.

Make no mistake -- Joe Biden is corrupt. He has many questions to answer, a career politician, and, by the way, with the worst economic and worst recovery in 40 years. In eight years of Obama-Biden, 13 million more Americans on food stamps, 8 million more on poverty. And compared to the Trump economy right now, all these records being broken.

And speaking of which, Hillary Clinton -- well, she and her fellow Democrats were accusing President Trump of colluding with a foreign government during the election. Well, we now know they were the ones who are actually doing the colluding.

Look at this damning report from "The Hill's" John Solomon. Ukraine's embassy in the U.S. is accusing the DNC of trying to coordinate with their government to affect the presidential election. A DNC contractor allegedly, quote, tried to arrange for the Ukrainian president to comment on Paul Manafort's Russian ties on a U.S. visit during the 2016 campaign and there's email evidence.

And as you can see, the left has a lot to be worried about tonight. They were the ones using the most sensitive, powerful tools in our federal government as a political weapon, turning it on the American people, to bludgeon the candidate they didn't like in favor of the candidate they thought should win 100 million to zero, and add an insurance policy after.

And after all, we are just a bunch of smelly Walmart voters. What do we know? They knew better. They are the super patriots.

They were the ones that actually were colluding with the foreign government, digging up dirt, collusion, to help impact an election. They're the ones that have divided this country now for over 2 years with lie after lie and a full-on hoax. They are the ones, as former Clinton pollster Mark Penn put it, they're the ones weaponizing our political system against itself.

And now, they are the ones lashing out, trying to distract from their crimes. And according to a great new op-ed from Kimberley Strassel in the "Wall Street Journal," the Attorney General Barr is now getting attacked because his probe endangers very powerful people. She will also be with us in a moment.

But now, the action of Hillary Clinton, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Joe Biden, Bruce and Nellie Ohr, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Susan Rice, and that means Clapper and Brennan and even the former president himself, Obama, are now coming into focus.

And we would need and we will get answers. And sunlight is the best disinfectant. The pendulum has now swung. The boomerang in full motion.

The Mueller issue is dead, over, done, completed. Act two now begins. And we better get it right or we lose the country we love forever.

Here now, the author of the brand new book, "The Mueller Report: The Final Report of the Special Counsel", including, by the way, introduction to Donald Trump, Russia and Collusion, Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, along with "The Wall Street Journal's" Kimberley Strassel, and the author of the number one bestseller, "The Russia Hoax: The Illicit Scheme to Clear Hillary Clinton and Frame Donald Trump", Greg Jarrett is with us.

Kimberley, I spent a lot of time on your column today and the gist of it is why Democrats are so desperate now to destroy Barr? Why? Because he told the truth? Because he made the right decision and he's going to investigate potential crimes?

KIMBERLEY STRASSEL, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Well, it's certainly not because of the Mueller report, because, look, Barr did exactly what they wanted him to. He handed over a barely redacted report quickly and one, by the way, that was highly critical of the president. They have nothing to complain about.

So, what you're really seeing here are people expressing their fear, because there are a lot of very powerful people that will be affected by this, current and former intelligence officials, senior most level people in the Democratic Party, people the media. The folks who leaked classified information and could potentially go to jail.

And they have successfully for a couple of years managed to make sure there was no oversight at the Department of Justice. No outsider taking a look at this. Barr not only has come in but he says and he will not back down from his saying he is going to finally get some answers out. And that is provoking the reaction.

The goal here is to demean him and hurt his integrity to try to undermine whatever he ultimately puts out.

HANNITY: And he did say this is now over.

Professor, your analysis on the obstruction side and Barr's decision is dead-on accurate. We now have four separate investigations, four separate declarations, no collusion. And, you know, I know you get uncomfortable and you hate that I ask this.

When I bring up -- well, professor, I know you are a great attorney. If I deleted 33,000 emails that had top secret classified information on a server where it did not belong and then I had somebody acid wash with Bleach Bit and hard drive and had an aide bust up devices with harmers and rip out the SIM cards, I know you don't like it and I know that you don't like the politics surrounding a lot of this.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ, HARVARD LAW PROFESSOR: Uh-huh.

HANNITY: You couldn't get me off and that's the problem here, is that it starts there. Then we have a widespread fraud against the FISA court with a dirty dossier.

DERSHOWITZ: I agree. I agree.

Look, Barr is right, though. Barr said in front of the Senate that we have to stop weaponizing the criminal justice system, which is why from day one, I said what we needed was a neutral, bipartisan, expert commission looking to every aspect of the 2016 election to find out exactly what happened. How did it start? Who was involved?

No pulled punches, no bipartisanship. They should have been the report like the 9/11 report. That would have credibility.

You don't have credibility when you have Republican truth on the one hand, Democratic truth on the other hand.

HANNITY: But there is only one truth. There's only one truth.

DERSHOWITZ: I understand that. That's why a neutral, objective, non- partisan commission could have come to that objective truth.

HANNITY: Professor, that time has come and gone. And the reality is, is what Barr has now said about a potentially rigged investigation into Hillary Clinton, that is now real. We now -- it looks like we have a lot of evidence.

DERSHOWITZ: And we should look into it. We should look into it. I have no doubt about that.

HANNITY: And the same with FISA.

DERSHOWITZ: Absolutely.

HANNITY: And the same with the insurance policy and bludgeoning a president. Where did this all start?

Gregg, I'll let you weigh in from the legal side.

(CROSSTALK)

GREGG JARRETT, LEGAL ANALYST: William Barr made it pretty clear. He knows spying went on. And the only question is, was it legal or illegal? Were rogue operators at the CIA and FBI involved in setting up somebody line George Papadopoulos which is what Papadopoulos says. He is invited over to London and he sits down with an under-confer informant for the FBI or CIA by the name of Stefan Halper.

Halper sticks out his phone as if he's recording the conversation and says it's great that Russia is helping you and the campaign, right, George? George, you and the campaign are involved in hacking, aren't you? It seems George like you're the middleman for Trump and Russia.

It does increasingly appear that Papadopoulos was a patsy set up by intelligence agencies, maybe the U.S., maybe British, and both, as a pre- text to investigation and spy on the Trump campaign to collect evidence of a non-existence conspiracy to damage Trump.

HANNITY: You know, Kimberly, I look at all three of you. You all have taken the stance of the 1 percent, because the 99 percent of analysis went the other way. When you so this boomerang, that the country was told one thing but in reality the other people were involved.

How do we get everybody to now see this is really bad? This is now a clear and present danger on a lot of different levels to this great republic we have?

STRASSEL: Well, Sean, this goes to one of the follies of the special counsel and a lot of us warned about this when Mueller was put into place.

DERSHOWITZ: Right.

STRASSEL: Which is that it creates a black hole. We had two years where the press was allowed to run wild hand in hand with the leakers who kept giving them information. And that narrative got established.

The important thing now is to get the actual documents as many as we can out so that people can read things for themselves and that is --

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: Professor, go ahead.

DERSHOWITZ: If people can do this to the president of the United States, they can do it to every one of us. Every civil libertarian ought to be outraged as what is being uncovered. We must demand that the FISA court looked into whether there was an abuse of their process. We have to look in to every aspect of this to avoid the recurrence, because it could happen any day to any of us. There could be increased efforts to influence the 2020 election, get to the bottom of it and act to stop it from being repeated.

HANNITY: Thank you all.

When we come back, tonight, House Intel Committee ranking member Devin Nunes breaking just now sent a letter to the NSA, the FBI, the CIA, the State Department, demanding answers about this professor, this Joseph Mifsud.

And also, George Papadopoulos was set up in a major way. It's like out of a Bond movie with a real flirtatious spy. I'm not kidding. We have the details, straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: All right. Breaking news earlier this evening, the House Intel Committee ranking member Devin Nunes sent a letter to the NSA, the State Department, the CIA, the FBI, demanding answers about Joseph Mifsud.

Now, remember, this is the, quote, "professor", the academic who told George Papadopoulos that the Russian he had dirt on Hillary Clinton. Remember the story?

And, by the way, George Papadopoulos also will be joining us.

Joining us now to explain is Congressman Devin Nunes himself.

Congressman, thank you. Last minute, we appreciate it.

The breaking news, rather than me -- I have the full copy of your letter right here. But rather than me explaining it, I think it would be best if you do.

REP. DEVIN NUNES, R-CALIF.: Well, it's great that you remember the story. And if you recall, after the Mueller report, which I called the Mueller dossier came out, I said that we're going to comb through it. One of the first things that we found is they used a news report, a "Guardian" news report to claim that the Link Campus was a place where Mifsud had worked.

What they failed to say in that same report is that Mifsud was actually related to Italian intelligence services. So, you can't -- if you are Mueller, you don't get to just report part of what you want in the history, you have to put the entire piece before the American people. He didn't do that. So, we are calling him out. This is not how investigations are supposed to be run.

When you look into Mifsud closer, Professor Mifsud closer, you realize he is connected with all kinds of intelligence agency including our own FBI. In that letter, Sean, you will see there are pictures with FBI agents at the Link Campus where Professor Mifsud teaches at.

So, we ask the question, I'll sum it up like this -- we want to know every document that these agencies have related to Mifsud, because if he is, in fact, a Russian agent, this would be one of the biggest intelligence scandals for not only the United States but also our allies like the Italians and the Brits and others. Because if Mifsud is a Russian agent, he would know all kinds of our intelligence throughout the globe.

So, we ask those questions, we want those documents, we're giving them a week. --

HANNITY: You said that this professor has, you know, all those connections to other Western intel and governments, and yes, the issue about Russia, which Mueller implies he was a Russian agent. But it may be much deeper is how I'm seeing this.

And my question to you is, do you believe in an effort to illegally spy or get intelligence on the American people that it's possible that some at the top of our intelligence chain community under Obama, Biden, that they may have outsourced things that were illegal for them to do to Americans so that they could have our allies do the spying for them?

Like, let me give you an example. Great Britain or Australia or maybe Italy? I think I'm -- am I over the target here?

NUNES: I think you are. And one of the things that we point out in the letter is we're very specific, because the FBI - or I should say the Mueller group claims that Papadopoulos misled them and they were not allowed to get to Professor Mifsud in time in order to interview him. This is the claims that they make against Papadopoulos when they sentence him to prison.

Now what we found is - we'll, wait a second, if this really happened and if you backtrack all this, and they're basically making the claim that Mifsud is the guy who said he had e-mails or he knew of the information about the e-mails being in the hands of the Russian government.

If that is in fact true, they couldn't talk to Mifsud supposedly until January-February of 2017. Well how do they know to ask Papadopoulos all through 2016 whether or not he's seen the Russian e-mails or whether knows about Russian e-mails? The only way that's possible is that had to come from Mifsud some way somehow.

So I think there it's more likely that I'm going to be the starting center on an NBA basketball team before Mifsud is a Russian - secret Russian agent. Now who Mifsud is working for, I don't know.

But right now, Sean, like everything we've had to do, we have to be slow and patient. We have to get the information, because we need to see what exactly was the relationship between Mifsud and our FBI; Mifsud and our State Department, that's - those are the questions we're asking.

HANNITY: And Mifsud in our intelligence community. By the way I wish I thought of this myself I'm kind of jealous - the Mueller dossier, which is interesting, but you specifically talk about omissions in the special counsel's report.

And you also talk about - explain a Papadopoulos met Mifsud. Now here's the thing, Congressman I'm going to happen to Papadopoulos and his wife on, and the story and the tale that we now know is true - even the New York Times, I think trying to get ahead of it, because they know what's coming out.

I don't know how long you knew, but you didn't tell me, and I wish you did. But they were using a young pretty, flirtatious woman in this equation right out of a James Bond novel or movie to set Papadopoulos up, along with Stefan Halper, along with this professor. Is there anything I'm saying that's wrong and how deep did it go?

NUNES: Well, I can't tell you. I said this a year ago, and I got mocked and others got mocked. I said, look, I'm not interested if the Trump campaign was spied on, that happened, that's fact. I want to know how many spies, informants, whatever you want to call them, were run into the Trump campaign.

So, look, The New York Times story right now says two, that's up from one. My guess is it's a lot more than that. If you listen to what Attorney General Barr said yesterday, as sophisticated as this operation was, to have a FISA warrant on someone, there had to be a lot more involvement considering the type of people, the level of people that were involved in this investigation from our own FBI.

So my guess is - I'm still holding to what I said a year ago, I want to know how many spies were run into the Trump campaign, and I still don't know. But we're going to get the answer and we're going to get out to the American people.

HANNITY: I count three instances when you include FISA. But thank you for being with us. Congressman please don't stop what you're doing.

NUNES: Thanks Sean.

HANNITY: This is too important to the foundational principles of the country. All right, exclusively when we get back, yes, it's right out of a Bond movie - setup, pretty young girl, spying, George, Simona Papadopoulos on Americans, finally getting to the truth and spying on the Trump campaign. Straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: As we've been telling you, tonight The New York Times finally gotten around to reporting on - yes, real spying on the Trump campaign and we've been telling you. They revealed the FBI sent a female government investigating - posing as a foreign policy researcher to meet with Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos, why? To get dirt on Trump's connections "To Russia".

Well dirt, we now know never existed. Joining us now with more to tell their story George Papadopoulos, Author of the book "Deep State Target: How I Got Caught in the Crosshairs of the Plot to Bring Down President Trump". Also, we are joined by wife Simona.

Two things I'm going to do here. One, I want your reaction to what Devin Nunes just revealed about the professor, which I have asked you about before. And two, I'm just going to read a small passage from your book about the blonde bombshell, if I may, because you actually said she wrote to you, "Let's meet for drinks, look forward to meeting you". You weren't sure if it was suggestive message.

They picked the location. She gave the name as a Azra Turk "A vision right out of central casting for a spy flick". These are your words. "She's a sexy bottle blonde in her 30s and she isn't shy about showing her curves as if anyone can miss them. She's a fantasies fantasy". And you went further on the radio today with me, George, and you said, "She absolutely was being beyond suggestive and flirtatious".

GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN AIDE: Yes, and Sean thanks for having both of us.

SIMONA PAPADOPOULOS, WIFE OF GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS: Thanks so much.

PAPADOPOULOS: We really appreciate it. The first thing about Joseph Mifsud. so Joseph Mifsud is the professor that I met in Rome initially and then in London who Bob Mueller falsely characterized to the world as some sort of Russian cutouts.

Now let me just explain how I even met Joseph Mifsud and where I met him. I was introduced to Joseph Mifsud by a woman named Arvinder Sambei who was a Director at a company I used to work for in London. Who she was directly connected to the FBI and MI6 and various other intelligence agencies.

And when I told them that I'm leaving and joining the Donald Trump campaign, they were furious. And they said, "But before you go you should go to Rome where we want you to meet some people who are going to help you on the Trump campaign", and that's where I met Joseph Mifsud.

I met him at a University which Simona knows a lot about, because she is from Italy, where the CIA and the FBI trains at and it's called Link Campus. And who was who introduced me or I should say passed me off to Joseph Mifsud, none other than the former Italian Foreign Minister, Vincenzo Scotti.

So why is this very interesting? Just recently - and Simona could clarify this a bit. In the Italian press, the Joseph Mifsud's lawyer has gone public and stated that Joseph Mifsud was "Forced to introduce George Papadopoulos to imaginary Russians of some nature", and he's also being protected by Italian intelligence services in Rome after he's been outed just last week living next to the U.S. Embassy. And, Simona, I'm sure has some more to offer about him.

SIMONA PAPADOPOULOS: Well this is a very interesting, because since it was very first interview with the FBI, the reason why the spotlight was on me was because the Tata (ph) was some sort of operative working with Joseph Mifsud.

But they misrepresented Mifsud as someone having the connection to Russia, while I made it clear that he had connection to Western intelligence. I met Mifsud many years ago at European Parliament in the circle of the Socialist Democrats. And I remember him campaigning for Hillary Clinton donating to the Clinton Foundation, and offering me a position at Link Campus.

At the same time I finally decided to move to London and join the London Center of International Law Practice, which is a partner of Link Campus. So I am a person with direct knowledge of these circles. I made this information clear to the FBI, to the Congress, and to the Senate during my multiple testimonies. But none of this transcript ever became public funnily enough.

I've been portrayed myself as a Russian agent, why not an Italian agent, if there is any way a suspicion about my connection to this world. I think all this was a fabrication and misrepresentation and today the Italian, finally, constituted an Investigative Committee within the Parliament to give Mifsud to justice and respond about his involvement in the so called Russiagate, which happens to be a Russian delusion.

HANNITY: No, I only--

SIMONA PAPADOPOULOS: Also, Sean, if you remember--

HANNITY: Yes. Well, you know what this is sounded like to me? This is - this - you couldn't even write this story at a novel. The blond "bombshell" that set up your husband. By the way, so everybody knows you guys weren't dating at that point - very important point, I think.

SIMONA PAPADOPOULOS: Don't worry, it's OK.

PAPADOPOULOS: Sean, I just want to say something on the record. The only blonde bombshell that I fell for is the one sitting right next to me.

SIMONA PAPADOPOULOS: Well, I beat there, I met him at the same time.

PAPADOPOULOS: But besides that, you're right, it's a very serious problem. And when I was flown out to London to meet with Stefan Halper and this assistant of his, they were probing me for two very disparate reasons.

One was my own professional background and my connections of the Israelis, which I ended up having some sort of far a charge on me from Mueller. So I think it's very connected, my meeting with Halper and that charge.

And secondly, they wanted to know about what Trump was up to with the Russians, which of course was nonsense. Now why is this--

HANNITY: But George, this is important. But you were saying she was - she was being so suggestive with you to get that information you, you were set up in a major way. And then you know it sounds like, I would think, a perjury trap in the end that put you in jail for two weeks.

PAPADOPOULOS: That's exactly what happened. And this whole thing was a complete setup. It was - there was some Keystone Cops stuff going on. The U.K., obviously, was involved because he the operation was in London.

I was meeting with British officials the same day that Stefan Halper and Azra Turk were spying on me. So there was something really insidious going on here with our ally, the U.K., and I'm sure that our President Trump is going to get to the bottom of it once he goes abroad and meets with Theresa May and the Queen in June.

HANNITY: Thank you both. All right, when we come back, NBC so-called commentator, he thinks he's a genius, took a shot at me, John Heilemann. I'll respond a little bit - Ari Fleischer also Pam Bondi and the media frenzy we saw this week over the Barr hearing, straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: All right. So the establishment media, as you know, they've been in a tailspin since the bottom fell out of their Russia, Russia, Russia collusion conspiracy theory. And the award for the most hysterical meltdown of the week - we got to give it to conspiracy TV MSNBC commentator John Heilemann who had this to say about Lolo me after Brian Williams asked a pretty smart question - actually and to react to a clip of me. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Everything we've reported the last two years full criminal investigations are now just beginning. Imagine that a talk-show host is right and so many in the fake news industry are wrong.

BRIAN WILLIAMS, ANCHOR MSNBC: John if we got it wrong these past two plus years?

JOHN HEILEMANN, MSNBC NATIONAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: I just - first of all, you bring me in here and the first thing you served me up is a big fat steaming plate at HANNITY, so thanks for that.

WILLIAMS: On the house.

HEILEMANN: I mean, it's been a long day and you brought it out here for me- -

WILLIAMS: On the house, happy to do it.

HEILEMANN: There's a phrase - people talk about a pig in - that's Sean, right now. He's a happy as a pig in - you know? Have we all got it wrong? I mean, many people would say that the news - not so much of the Barr news - not the bar performance today--

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: All right. I'm going to leave Brian alone for now. But John, well first of all look in the mirror and maybe you should be thanking me for informing the public with the truth, as you were pushing lie after lie, conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory.

And you shouldn't be surprised, you can't handle the truth, because you were one of the main perpetrators of this hoax and lie and Russia collusion conspiracy. You've done it for months. Take a little trip down memory lane.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HEILEMANN: The degree of leverage - we don't know exactly what it is. But the degree of leverage that Vladimir Putin has over Donald Trump was laid bare. There is no one in the country right now who's not impaired or a moron, who doesn't see that Donald Trump is in the bag for Vladimir Putin.

-- and he said yesterday, I've never worked for Russia, just made you think over and over again about our two previous Presidents embroiled in potential impeachments, Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon, saying - Bill Clinton, I never had sexual relations with that woman. Richard Nixon, I'm not a crook.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Here with reaction Fox News contributor Ari Fleischer; Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi. Ari, I see the head moving like this. It's very hard to be introspective, isn't it? Very hard to admit you're wrong on something isn't it?

ARI FLEISCHER, CONTRIBUTOR: And especially when you put the nation through two years of turmoil. If they don't understand the damage they've done to the American goodwill, to Americans working together, they have put us into pitted parted camps. There's normally pilot polarization and partisanship in Washington. The last two years have broken all the records and it's because of people like this.

Look, Sean, I think all of this is just a continuation of the people who never accepted the Trump election. They immediately went into the resistance. They tried to overturn it in the Electoral College and that never stopped.

They boycotted is inauguration. All of this is in the same vein. They never accepted 2016. Doesn't matter what the facts are, they want Trump out of office. They'll make up facts to support getting him out of office.

HANNITY: You know, great minds think alike, Ari and Pam I'll throw to you. I've been using very much a similar analogy. The shock of the 2016 election win, especially Election Day, because Election Day the exit polls showed very much Donald Trump didn't win a single state.

And Ari can relate to this, because in 2004 the exit polls showed John Kerry was going to be the next President and Mr. I voted for the whatever - and voted against it, was wrong, never became President.

But the shock of Mueller seems to be on par with the shock of 2016 as they raised their expectations and the expectations of their audience so high, how could they possibly admit that they were so wrong especially in light of what we now know is going to be coming, what the Attorney General told us this week.

PAM BONDI, FORMER FLORIDA ATTORNEY GENERAL: That's right. Sean, they want to get in the gutter and they have nowhere else to go, because you were right and they were wrong. You are a man of integrity, who I've known for over 20 years, and that's why you're my dear friend, because you are so honest and you fight for what you believe in.

They've got nowhere to go, so they start name-calling - really. It's the most ridiculous thing I've heard. They have nowhere to go because President Trump did nothing wrong. Robert Mueller's report confirmed that. Bill Barr confirmed that, nothing wrong, which is what you've been saying on this witch hunt for two years.

And if you hadn't done this, who would have? Who would have fought for our country and fought for our President? The American people believe in it and believe in you.

HANNITY: I really appreciate that. What was missing here Ari - and you dealt with this for all the years. I mean, how anyone who is ever press secretary - I don't know - you need the patience to job honestly I don't have it. I could not do that.

Well I couldn't do the job for a day. I - maybe 10 days but, that's me - probably the max. But there's not even any intellectual curiosity here. If they really cared about obstruction, they'd care about what Hillary did which subpoenaed e-mails?

If they really cared about Russia collusion, they would care about the dossier. They only care about sexual assault or allegations when it's Kavanaugh, but not the Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, selective moral outrage.

FLEISCHER: I know there's going to be a fascinating test coming up for the media. And that is as the Department of Justice, Michael Horowitz, Inspector General and others start to reveal what is known now about the Obama campaign's decision to spy on the Trump campaign and whether anybody violated either rules at the FBI or the laws.

Will the press cover that straight up? Will they cover it with the same intensity and with the same pounding that they've given to Donald Trump? Or will they round it out?

HANNITY: What's the answer, Ari.

FLEISCHER: --and I have a feeling they're going to be in the make excuses category.

HANNITY: All right, when we come back more “Hannity” right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: All right. Unfortunately, that's all the time we have left this evening. We will never the hate, rage, media mob. Things are beginning to break wide open. Hope you have a great weekend. Thank you for being with us.

Let not your heart be troubled. "The Ingraham Angle", Laura is up next. And we will see you on Monday.

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