Posted on 04/24/2018 2:45:46 PM PDT by struggle
ELLEN FANNING: I want to start by asking you: did you meet with George Papadopoulos in the Kensington Wine Bar in May of 2016? And if so, what did he say to you?
ALEXANDER DOWNER: Well, let me be blunt about this. Of course it has been widely reported that I did.
The original transcript has a comma after "Of course" but there's no verbal pause indicating such. It sounds like Downer may be walking the encounter back. He demurs about everything he's asked regarding Papadopolous.
Breaking News.
I did not see any walk back.
I saw a hack who refused to answer any questions.
What is he hiding?
Who?
Having just now viewed the actual interview, I’d love to have the “body language lady” view & comment on it. It looked pretty sketchy to me, personally.
Downer is an Austalian diplomat. Papadopoulos is a foreign policy advisor who was part of Trump’s campaign. The claim is that Downer and Papadopoulos were drinking heavily in London in May 2016, and Papadopoulos told Downer that Russia had compromising information/dirt on Hillary. Supposedly Downer passed this comment on to the FBI and that prompted the opening of the Trump-Russia-collusion investigation.
The story seems farfetched to begin with. If at this point Downer won’t even confirm he was drinking with Papadopoulos, that’s significant [or would be, if Rosenstein weren’t running the DOJ].
He’s probably been told by the FBI not to talk about it.
What’s puzzling to me about the story though is that he supposedly met Papa in March 2016 but he did not tell the FBI until after the Wiki dump. But the Wiki dump occurred on Oct 7, long after the investigation began ( ie the investigation began in June 2016 according to Comey). So how could the information have triggered the investigation? The investigation had been underway for four months already.
Sounds fishy to me. No doubt sounds legit to Sessions.
He's a pretty solid conservative (although a bit wet for my tastes on some issue). He was Foreign Minister (our equivalent of your Secretary of State) during Prime Minister John Howard's (our most conservative Prime Minister in decades) long premiership from 1996 until 2007, our longest serving Foreign Minister, in fact.
He is not just some hack diplomat.
I have always had doubts about this story that Downer met with Papadopoulos and had the conversation described (which was a story that first appeared in the New York Times and hasn't as far as I can see been confirmed by any reliable source) was accurate. I certainly can't say for certain one way or the other, but it does seem to have been simply accepted as factual based on very little evidence at all.
Note, I am not saying it isn't true. I think it's possible. But it could also be very wrong. There's no real evidence either way from what I can see.
Downer donated over 25 million to the Clinton Foundation.
And u call him a conservative?
LOL.
No, Downer didn’t donate $25 million to the Clinton Foundation.
The Australian government did as part of an aid package.
Aid package?
LOL
Since when does a foreign diplomat care what the FBI "tells" them to do?
On the one hand, he has diplomatic immunity in the United States, and on the other hand, this conversation happened in Great Britain, where the FBI has no jurisdiction.
-PJ
Yes, it was an aid package. The money was given to the Clinton Foundation to spend solely on projects related to HIV/Aids in Africa.
Now, perhaps the Clinton Foundation didn’t spend the money that way but that is why it was donated. The Australian government routinely makes donations to Non Government Organisations as part of our foreign aid budget.
When those organisations are based in the United States, we trust the American government to police them and make sure they are following the law. The Australian government does not assume as a matter of course that US law enforcement is impotent, and American based organisations are inherently corrupt.
Should it do so?
If the Clinton Foundation has broken US law and misspent Australian money, that’s not a good situation - but to suggest the Australian government is somehow responsible for that happening, rather than the US government is actually pretty absurd.
But to try and push an agenda, that is exactly what is happening here.
Alexander Downer was the Foreign Minister of Australia at a time when Australia went to war twice in support of the United States when the United States had a Republican President in office - at a time when most of the world was willing to stand back and let the United States go it alone. He was also at one time, the actual official leader of Australia’s major conservative party - he preceded John Howard in that role. The idea that he isn’t a conservative is frankly rather ridiculous.
Well, any witness can disregard what the FBI says but they usually don’t.
Sessions is such a downer.
When the Australian government is also telling him not to, to avoid causing a diplomatic incident with the US.
An incident that the left wing press has done the best it can to try and create.
This story - which may or may not be factual (I suspect it is partly factual but mostly nonsense) - came from the New York Times. There's very little evidence to support it.
Why do people seem to be just accepting it is accurate? I thought people were starting to understand the concept of 'fake news' but this story (which frankly is rather odd - it relies on a conservative diplomat with decades of experience, including as Australia's longest serving Foreign Minister, suddenly being very strangely indiscreet - it's not impossible, but seriously, there's a lot of reason to have questions) seems to be just accepted as true.
-PJ
It's an interesting thought, that the government of Australia is more afraid of the "Deep State" in America that's fomenting a coup than the actual Administration under attack.
That said, the thing that always gnawed at the back of my mind is why an Australian ambassador, after an evening of drinking with a low-level Trump campaign aide, would think that an off-hand comment that "Russians" had compromising information on Hillary Clinton was worth running up the chain of command.
I'd have thought that the world's diplomatic corps would have taken it for granted that "Russians" had dirt on everyone, and that it was not earth-shattering news, especially since the Clinton server story had been news for quite some time.
-PJ
He really is. Also there is a rumor going around that Rosenstein might resign. At first that seemed good to me...then I thought about it. Mueller has done everything in his power to get fired and RR hasn’t been much better. That makes it hard for Plan A, which was to goad Trump into a Saturday Night Massacre.
Enter Plan B. Rosenstein resigns and blames it on all Trump’s mean tweets. Iow, Rosenstein tells the world that Trump created such a hostile work environment that he could no longer do his job effectively.
Mueller finally has his obstruction PLUS a reason to drag his investigation out for many more months. Win-win for the Deep State.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.