BOGUS: NYTimes’ Papadopoulos ‘bombshell’ continues to unravel after former DNI Clapper says he knew NOTHING about him

(National Sentinel)Â Deep Mistake:Â Last weekendÂ The New York Times published what it considered a â€˜bombshellâ€™ revelation: ThatÂ George Papadopoulos, a young foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, was the individual who essentially got the â€œRussian collusionâ€ investigation started, rather than the widely refuted â€œTrump dossier.â€

â€œDuring a night of heavy drinking at an upscale London bar in May 2016, George Papadopoulos, a young foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, made a startling revelation to Australiaâ€™s top diplomat in Britain: Russia had political dirt on Hillary Clinton,â€ the paper reported.

The rest of the report, which was lengthy, sought to add to the new narrative that what this minor Trump campaign official allegedly told an Australian diplomat is what triggered the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into alleged Russian collusion.

Republicans in Congress have long asserted that the FBI used the unsubstantiated Trump dossier to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant from the secretive FISA court in order to justify launching a counterintelligence investigation against members of President Donald J. Trumpâ€™s campaign in 2016.

Further evidence emerged earlier this week suggesting that Republicans are right and not the Times.

President Obama’s Director of National Intelligence James Clapper toldÂ CNNÂ Tuesday evening thatÂ Papadopoulos was not on his â€œradar scopeâ€ when he left.

â€œThere were other factors that I think were the stimulus for the investigation and the revelation about George Papadopoulos, which was not a name on my radar scope when I leftâ€¦I think also was another factor,â€ Clapper said.

The former DNI also made the claim, as some Democrats and Left-leaning media outlets have similarly made in the past, that portions of the Russian dossier have been substantiated.

However, when pressed, Clapper could only recount two instances, neither of which have to do with alleged Russian collusion with the Trump campaign.

He cited Russian President Vladimir Putinâ€™s â€œanimusâ€ towards Hillary Clinton â€œand the determination of clearly favoringâ€¦Trump to win the presidency” as the two examples.

In a tweet,Â Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberly Strassel noted,Â â€œFormer Director of National Intelligence James Clapper (in a Tuesday CNN interview): George Papadopoulos â€œwas not a name on my radar scope when i left.â€ So head of intelligence had never heard of the dude that the NYT now claims launched the entire Trump-Russia probe?â€

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper (in a Tuesday CNN interview): George Papadopoulos "was not a name on my radar scope when i left." So head of intelligence had never heard of the dude that the NYT now claims launched the entire Trump-Russia probe? — Kimberley Strassel (@KimStrassel) January 3, 2018

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