I Know the Name of the Spy the FBI Put in the Trump Campaign

RUSH: I now know who the spy is. I know now know who the FBI was running in the Trump campaign. I don’t think I’m gonna give you the name of the spy, but I’m gonna tell you everything the spy has done. It is the most amazing story. It is a story of entrapment. When you hear this, it’s gonna infuriate you. You’re gonna realize how utterly phony this entire investigation of Donald Trump is. It’s phonier than you even realize now.

And there is a CliffsNotes version of this, and there is the intricate detailed version of this. I’m gonna give you the CliffsNotes version when we get into this. The name of the spy, you may not know it, it’s not somebody when you hear the name, “Oh, that person.” It’s not that kind of person. Even to call the person a spy is a little bit of a stretch. It’s more like an operative employed by the FBI to basically entrap somebody who worked with the Trump campaign in a peripheral way, and it worked like a charm.

And it all involved the name George Papadopoulos. Does the name George Papadopoulos ring a bell? George Papadopoulos is the so-called second reason the Mueller investigation or the FBI investigation into Trump colluding with Russia began. The first reason we were given was Carter Page. A FISA warrant, as you know, was secured to spy on Carter Page because of the Steele dossier. But nothing came of Mr. Page.

The New York Times over the New Year’s weekend, 2017-2018, wrote a story saying that actually it was something else that triggered everything, and that was George Papadopoulos. They dropped Carter Page entirely and, using the media, when the Steele dossier was exposed as a fraud, when it was exposed as an opposition research document, the intelligence people, the FBI, DOJ, went into stage 2, came up with a new reason, ostensibly to trigger the investigation.

Turns out it wasn’t Carter Page. It was George Papadopoulos. And do you remember what they said Papadopoulos did? Papadopoulos got drunk one night at a bar in London and started talking to somebody that just happened to be an ambassador from Australia. And Papadopoulos told this guy that the Russians had thousands of Hillary Clinton emails. The New York Times weekend story, New Year’s weekend in 2017-2018 stressed that that is what actually triggered the investigation.

Well, Papadopoulos was entrapped by three people, including the person who is reputed to be the spy. And very simply here’s the CliffsNotes version of what happened. George Papadopoulos, 24-year-old peripheral member of the Trump foreign policy campaign team. He was a nothing. He was a nobody, which made him a perfect mark. He was a young guy who wanted to go places.

On his resume trying to get jobs with governments and campaigns, he actually put on his resume that he had participated in Model U.N. in high school and college. The spy, the operative, sent this guy from the U.K., sent this guy an invitation to write a paper on things about Turkey and Cyprus and some other things, offered to pay him $3,000, and his plane ticket to the U.K.

Before that happened, another operative had informed Papadopoulos that the Russians had Hillary Clinton emails. Papadopoulos did not independently know this. He was told this by a Russian spy or a person connected to the Russians whose name is Mifsud. Mifsud operates with the person thought to be the FBI’s informant on the Trump campaign and the Australia ambassador.

So some months before Papadopoulos was offered this research paper and speech by the informant, he was paid three grand for it and his plane ticket to Europe, sometime before that this Mifsud guy happened to see — Papadopoulos was set up and targeted. And he was told, “By the way, Russians have 3,000 or a bunch of Hillary emails, thousands of Hillary emails.” Papadopoulos keeps it close to the vest, doesn’t say anything about it, but thinks it’s really cool that somebody is letting him in on things.

In other words, Papadopoulos, reputedly the source and the reason, the second explanation for the investigation, only knew supposedly the Russians do have Hillary. We don’t even know that that’s true. But they planted that news with him to set him up. Folks, this is entrapment like you cannot believe. So Papadopoulos, when he’s given this offer of $3,000 to do a lecture and write a report by the FBI’s informant, he already knows because he’s been told by this Mifsud fellow that the Russians have thousands of Hillary e-mails.

So when he is summoned — and Papadopoulos himself says his invitation to write this paper and come to the U.K. and be given $3,000 came out of the blue. He couldn’t figure it out, why me, he was asking himself. But he accepted and he went over. He met with the informant, and during a conversation the informant said, “George, do you remember, does it ring a bell, the Russians have thousands of Hillary emails? Do you remember this?”

So now Papadopoulos is hearing it for the second time. But he doesn’t know that he’s talking to an informant for the FBI, a, quote, unquote, spy. So after that, the informant gets hold of the Australian ambassador and suggests to him that he meet Papadopoulos at a London bar, which happened. Papadopoulos gets liquored up, gets drunk, this is factually known, it’s been reported, and Papadopoulos starts bragging to the Australia ambassador, “Hey, did you know that the Russians have thousands of emails?”

Papadopoulos passed this information along as though it were his own. He was just trying to fit in. He was just trying to be a big guy. Papadopoulos telling this story to the Australia ambassador is what triggered this as news. Papadopoulos did not independently know this. He was fed this information. He was used to be a Trump campaign official to make the statement to the Australian ambassador who could then report to the FBI, DOJ, that a member of the Trump campaign has been saying that the Russians have thousands of Hillary’s emails.

The whole thing was a setup. It was perfect entrapment 101. When Papadopoulos was questioned about this by the FBI, he lied about some things, and that’s why Mueller indicted him, convicted him, and he was found guilty of lying to the FBI because at some point he realized what was going on.

Now, the important thing to remember here is that Papadopoulos was a peripheral member of the Trump campaign. He didn’t know anything officially. He wasn’t close enough to anybody to know anything. He’s 24, 25 years old, whatever, but he never had day-to-day contact with Trump. He didn’t have day-to-day contact with the Trump campaign foreign policy team, none of that. He was targeted because he was a young, eager beaver. He was targeted and he was set up and he was entrapped.

The informant and Mifsud implant the news with Papadopoulos that the Russians have thousands of Hillary emails. He’s hearing this essentially from people working — unbeknownst to him — with the FBI and the DOJ. So he gets drunk one night in a bar with the Australian ambassador, which was also set up and passes that information along as though it’s his own and he knows it as a Trump campaign person. That triggered. That provided an opportunity for the FBI/DOJ to say the Trump campaign knew that the Russians had 3,000 or thousands of Hillary Clinton emails.

t is no different than Comey going to the Oval Office to tell Trump about the salacious elements of the Steele dossier, which then enabled the media to report about the Steele dossier. The Steele dossier had nothing in it that was factual — still hasn’t been confirmed — and because of that they had to drop it. They had to drop the FISA warrant on Page that wasn’t going anywhere. They needed another so-called reason to conduct this investigation. Papadopoulos was the mark.

So just as James Comey tells the president… Well, James Comey was instructed by Clapper to tell the president about the dossier. Comey has admitted in interviews that was his assignment. He didn’t tell Trump who paid for the dossier. His assignment was to tell Trump it existed. After he did that, Comey tells Clapper, “Mission accomplished.” Clapper calls CNN; CNN reports the Steele dossier and that Trump knows about it. That’s how that story begins.

They get a Pulitzer Prize for this or some kind of award from the White House Correspondents’ Association. This thing with Papadopoulos is no different than that. And there might be two other people that have been set up as Papadopoulos was. Page’s involvement here might be the result of a setup or sting as well. Now, that’s the CliffsNotes version of this. The detailed version is more harrowing, and it will tick you off, folks.

And what you conclude — what we all conclude when this is over — is that there is nothing real in this investigation, that every aspect of this investigation… You might look at this Papadopoulos story as the “insurance policy” that Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were texting each other about back and forth. Remember when she was saying that they’d better keep out the possibility Trump could win? Strzok said, “No, there’s no way.” She was saying, “I don’t know,” and Strzok said, “Well, then we need an insurance policy.”

This, the Papadopoulos thing may well be the insurance policy. But the thing to know here is that George Papadopoulos did not think that the Russians had thousands of Hillary Clinton emails until he was told by the informant — the FBI informant — who was ratting on, implanted in the Trump campaign. He was actually told about it by a friend of the informant’s, this Mifsud fellow, M-I-F-S-U-D, who has ties to Russian intelligence. He may, in fact, be a Russian agent, but he does double duty. He may be the first person to actually tell Papadopoulos about it.

Then the informant, the so-called spy, calls Papadopoulos and invites him to London to write a research paper/deliver a speech on the research paper for which he’ll be paid $3,000 and airfare. And while in London on this bogus, distracting mission of a lecture the informant said, “George? George, remember that story? Have you heard about how the Russians got thousands of Hillary’s emails?” So he hears it for the second time now. He hears it from the informant, and before that the informant’s buddy, Mifsud. So now, Papadopoulos thinks he’s on to something.

But he keeps it close to the vest until he has a night at a bar in London with the Australian ambassador — who, by the way, is a huge donor to the Clinton Foundation. He gets liquored up and he starts bragging to the Australian ambassador that, “We know the Russians have three thou…” I keep saying 3,000. That’s the fee he was paid. “Russians have thousands of Hillary Clinton emails!” That then became the FBI/the DOJ telling the media, “A Trump campaign official has informed us.

“He has been talking about the fact that they know in the Trump campaign that Russia has Hillary’s emails.” That is what triggered the second phase of the investigation after the Steele dossier was outed. Remember, Papadopoulos did not independently know this. He was fed this information. He was entrapped with it. He’s a young guy, wants to matter. They gave him what he thought was super tight news, big news; not very many people knew it. He felt really important. They were tugging him close to the vest. They liked him! They trusted him.

He thinks he’s on to something here. He can’t wait to brag about it, and he did to the Australian ambassador. The Australian ambassador then followed the script. He said, “Guess what? The Trump campaign’s bragging about all these emails from Hillary that they know that the Russians have.” Bam! The second phase of the investigation is triggered. The New York Times reports, “George Papadopoulos drunk one night London bar, informs blah, blah from Australia that the Russians…”

And that’s how that all happened. That’s just one story involving the so-called spy on informant. It’s all trumped up, folks. No pun intended. None of it’s real. All of it was made up. It was simply created to permit an investigation, just like Comey telling Trump the dossier existed served as the mechanism to get the media in the clear to report on the dossier. This thing is more fake… This whole investigation is more fake and more phony — more connived — than you could possibly imagine.

RUSH: Now, let me get into a little bit more detail. I know the Jerusalem story is a big story. Everything happening is a big story. But this, to me… Since this is the mechanism by which the deep state is attempting to get rid of Donald Trump — and since the news hit last week in Kimberley Strassel that there was a spy, an FBI informant in the Trump campaign — I have been singularly on ferreting all of this out and spent most of Saturday afternoon doing it. And I just gave you the CliffsNotes version of this.

Now, the thing to remember… The first thing to remember in this is that there are two triggers of the investigation. Call it the Mueller investigation. Call it the deep state attempt to expose Trump-Russia collusion. The first phase of this — and what it turns out to be is the first attempt at this — was getting a FISA warrant to spy on Carter Page. It looks like Carter Page was also fed information that he ended up talking about that then facilitated the deep state to go, “Wow. Look what this guy knows!” when they’re the ones that fed him the information.

Carter Page also didn’t know anything from Shinola about the Trump campaign or collusion. He was set up as well. So the Steele dossier is floating around. Everybody in Washington knows it, and they also know it can’t be verified. But they think it’s gold. They know that it’s Hillary Clinton opposition research, but they’re not telling anybody that. They go to the FISA court and get a warrant to spy on Page, given that he is supposedly the link between Trump and Russia and collusion. Well, after the FISA warrant was granted and the spying began, then the news hit that the dossier is a fraud.

It’s faux, it’s a fraud, it’s a fake. It’s Hillary Clinton opposition research. So the investigators, the deep state know that at the end of the day, this isn’t gonna work. They’re not gonna be able to get rid of Trump. They’re not gonna be able to drive his numbers down on a dossier that is actual opposition research of Trump’s political opponent. They need something else to trigger the idea that Trump colluded with Russia to sustain the investigation, which really is not gonna have much substance to it because of the discovery of the phoniness of the dossier.

Enter George Papadopoulos. Now, I don’t know if you remember, but I do. Out of nowhere, all of a sudden, Mueller indicts this guy, and we start hearing about Papadopoulos supposedly having information as a member of the Trump campaign that the Russians have thousands of Hillary Clinton’s hacked emails. I said to myself, “Papadopoulos? Who is George Papadopoulos! Is this a stretch or is this a stretch?” Never heard of the guy. Nobody else had heard of the guy.

But it was this knowledge that permitted Mueller and the deep state to essentially restart the investigation. The New York Times had a massive story over the New Year’s weekend explaining the Papadopoulos angle. And they said in that story, it was reported that Papadopoulos actually was the trigger for the investigation in the first place way back in July of 2016, not Carter Page. If you remember, when Papadopoulos’ name surfaced, the FBI, the DOJ, the media, they all said, “Oh, no, no!

“It wasn’t the dossier. It wasn’t Page. That’s incidental. Papadopoulos is where all this began. The electronic communication between John Brennan and the investigators at the FBI — including Comey mentioning Papadopoulos — that’s where this began,” they said. Okay. If you… Don’t forget that throughout everything else that you now hear, because Papadopoulos was set up. He was entrapped. Papadopoulos didn’t know anything about the Russians having hacked Hillary’s emails or being in possession of 3,000 or thousands of them.

He didn’t know a thing about that. That information was planted. That information was told to him by the informant that the FBI supposedly has in the Trump campaign. The informant extends an invitation to Papadopoulos to come to London. He’s gonna be paid $3,000 and airfare to write a paper on immigration involving Turkey and Cyprus, something entirely nebulous. They needed to get him to London. He had been targeted as a young eager beaver who didn’t know anything who wanted to go someplace. They targeted him as somebody they could plant information and he would use it as they intended if he could be guided properly, and he was.

So the informant calls him. This is… It’s tricky here in one regard because there’s another person that may be another informant. This guy’s name is Mifsud, Joseph Mifsud. Mifsud is a Russian-tied agent and spy who has connections to MI6 in the U.K., and it’s this guy who first informed Papadopoulos about these emails the Russians had. So the informant calls Papadopoulos and makes this big offer. Papadopoulos was curious about the motivation. He didn’t quite understand why he was being sought out ’cause he didn’t know these people.

It seemed very random to him but then it all started to make sense once he accepted this. He spent a lot of time in London because these people got him there under the false premise that they wanted to see what he would write and lecture about immigration and foreign policy and some of these other Asian/European countries. So after Papadopoulos accepts the invitation and is in the United Kingdom, the informant on one occasion said to Papadopoulos:

“George, you know about hacking the emails from Russia, right? You’ve heard about that?” Well, Papadopoulos had because he had been informed by the informant’s friends, Mifsud. It was the informant/spy who sought out Papadopoulos and mentioned the existence of the emails. At this point, we have to bring in the Australian ambassador, a guy named Downer — Alexander Downer — who now gets himself introduced to Papadopoulos through Joseph Mifsud, who has also told about these phantom emails.

Downer — the ambassador from Australia and a donor to the Clinton Foundation — and Papadopoulos go out drinking one night. Papadopoulos starts bragging about knowing about these emails that the Russians have, Hillary Clinton emails. Downer knows that Papadopoulos has been told about this by his two buddies, the informant and his friend. Downer is a complicit player in this. He didn’t just happen to be randomly drinking with Papadopoulos one night at a bar.

They were set up to go there together so that Papadopoulos, hopefully, would brag to him about these emails that he, Papadopoulos, knew about. When Papadopoulos came through and did this, this then enabled Alexander Downer to report to the Americans — the FBI and the DOJ — that there’s somebody from the Trump campaign in London running around bragging about all of these emails he knows that the Russians have. So it’s a circle, with Papadopoulos in the middle as the person entrapped.

Papadopoulos was set up, including getting him drunk so that he would talk about the Hillary email that they had told him about. Papadopoulos had been informed by Joseph Mifsud. Again, this guy is a London-based academic who professed to have Kremlin connections, and he is introduced to Papadopoulos after the informant invites him over or — the invitation is made to Papadopoulos to do this lecture, to write this piece. That then opens up a channel of communication between Mifsud and Papadopoulos.

So before Papadopoulos even arrives in London, Mifsud informs him of the emails that the Russians have, the Hillary emails that the Russians hacked. So Papadopoulos is told this before he even arrives in London. I want to make that clear. Then he gets to London, accepting the invitation of the informant spy, who then happens to ask (paraphrasing), “George, you remember this story, right, about the Russians hacking Hillary’s emails and they have them? Remember?”

“Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course I do.” So Papadopoulos had been informed by Joseph Mifsud, a London-based academic who professed to have Kremlin connections. A few weeks later, drinking in a London bar — this is May of 2016 — Papadopoulos blabbed the news to Alexander Downer. And that’s essentially the story.

Now, it’s been confirmed, by the way, if you go back and look at Glenn Simpson testimony, private testimony, behind-closed-doors testimony to House and Senate committees, he alludes to all of this in a roundabout way, Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS. I mean, the more detail I go into there, the more convoluted the story gets because we’re skipping back and forth in time. As I say, it took me a number of hours on Saturday to put this all together. And I’m not the only one who has; please don’t misunderstand.

I’m telling you everything but the informant’s name. I’ve even gone to some websites who hate Trump, U.K. websites that hate Trump who love the informant. The informant’s an Oxford professor. He’s a typical establishment elitist person in his seventies. He comes from the whole elitist establishment crowd, which would be appalled at somebody like Donald Trump being elected.

He’s got ties to U.S. politics, dual citizenship, has U.K. citizenship and American citizenship and has served in American administrations widely known to American intelligence people and the FBI. And he was asked to perform this mission with Papadopoulos. And it simply, at its base level, is a story of entrapment. Papadopoulos then is questioned by Mueller about all of this. When the news hits that it was Papadopoulos rambling in a bar in London that actually triggered the investigation, that’s what Mueller and Rosenstein, everybody wants us to believe, it was Papadopoulos, not Carter Page, not the FISA warrant, not the Steele dossier.

They’re trying to make us believe that those things are not what really triggered this. They’re incidental. The dossier’s incidental. Carter Page incidental. Papadopoulos is the reason all this happened. Papadopoulos is the guy that had the news that the Trump campaign knew that the Russians had hacked emails from Hillary and may have had something to do with it. That’s what they’re saying triggered this investigation in July of 2016.

And I can tell you assuredly that it’s all bogus, that Papadopoulos was entrapped and set up and didn’t independently know this. And, in fact, it’s not ever been established that the Russians have thousands of Hillary Clinton emails. That, too, likely has been totally made up to fit this narrative, this intricately woven web of deceit. The trigger point for this, the thing everybody’s looking at is the electronic communication that got all of this started, and that trigger’s back to John Brennan, who was Obama’s CIA director. Who even admitted one day on Meet the Press, he was asked by Chuck Todd (paraphrasing), “Look, this information that we have here, did this all come to you from the five eyes,” which is our European and Australian allies who help us with intelligence.

And Brennan said, “Well, no, not really. You know, we’re really, really tight with British intel.” He was really huffing and puffing and trying to remain uncommitted. But he, in his answer, focused on the idea that they really had assistance here, were really being aided by British intel. Well, that’s the informant spy that everybody now believes Brennan was referring to, not by name, of course. ‘Cause at this point they all thought they were getting away with this.

Anyway, you’re probably gonna see a whole bunch of people writing about this. Chuck Ross at The Daily Caller has written a lot of this in an article back in March, it turns out, including the name of the informant spy, although he didn’t tag him as such, Ross didn’t back in March.

RUSH: Now, folks, everything I’ve just told you is what Devin Nunes at the House Intelligence Committee is trying to get confirmed. And evidence of this is what has been redacted by Rosenstein and the DOJ. You know, Nunes has been seeking via subpoena all of the records relevant to this, and the DOJ has been stonewalling and refusing. And Rosenstein is saying, “I will not be extorted” and so forth. But if you read the House Intelligence Committee report — I took a stab at it. It’s 252 pages. There’s so many redactions in this thing, and some of it is the four names.

Carter Page’s name is public. But it is believed the three other targets of this whole operation are Papadopoulos, Paul Manafort, and Greg somebody, he’s also been indicted along with Manafort. Those are the four. And Nunes is striving to get this stuff unredacted.

Now, in addition to the informant so-called spy, I have in the process here gotten very interested in this Joseph Mifsud person. His name is all over this. He was the first person to tell George Papadopoulos about the fact the Russians had thousands of Hillary Clinton hacked emails. Nobody has ever confirmed the Russians have anything of Hillary’s, by the way. This is a made-up story.

He’s a Maltese professor. He’s based in London, claims to have Kremlin contacts. He is who told Papadopoulos the Kremlin had thousands of emails of Hillary Clinton. He travels in the same intelligence, foreign policy, academic circles as all of these other people in this story. We don’t know that he’s really a Russian agent. How do we know that his targeting of Papadopoulos was on behalf of Russia. We don’t know that. Could have been on behalf of the FBI. But that’s pretty much where we are with this as of today.

RUSH: So I think all this was passed on to Brennan and the CIA. And that’s where the electronic communication originated to start this whole thing.

Found this... at https://www.themarketswork.com/2018/05/10/ties-that-bind-stefan-halper-joseph-mifsud-alexander-downer-papadopoulos/

Ties That Bind – Stefan Halper, Joseph Mifsud & Alexander Downer (& Papadopoulos)

May 10, 2018 by Jeff Carlson, CFA

George Papadopoulos appears to have been targeted by three individuals with ties to British and/or U.S. Intelligence.

Joseph Mifsud
Alexander Downer
Stefan Halper

George Papadopoulos and Joseph Mifsud reportedly both worked at the London Centre of International Law Practice.

Joseph Mifsud appears to have joined LCILP around November 2015. Papadopoulos appears to have joined LCILP sometime in late February or early March 2016 after leaving Ben Carson’s campaign.

Per reports, Papadopoulos and Mifsud first met on March 14, 2016.

The London Centre of International Law and Practice Limited (LCILP) is an odd institution. From their website:

LCILP training emphasises the practical application of international law as a field inseparable from its geopolitical and global economic context.

On March 22, 2016, the Washington Post noted the following:

Papadopoulos, a 2009 graduate of DePaul University, directs an international energy center at the London Center of International Law Practice.

The Post did not seem to be aware that Papadopoulos had only held that position for a matter of weeks.

How Papadopoulos got the position remains unknown. An article by Medium notes the following:

The Centre for International Energy and Natural Resources Law & Security existed, at least in name, before Papadopoulos’s arrival and it’s unclear why he was chosen to head it. A list on the website of a dozen people associated with it suggests others were better qualified.

Was Papadopoulos attempting to bulk up his resume. Who offered the young analyst the prestigious sounding position.

Indications seem to be that the position was primarily in name only.

In a November 4, 2017 article, the Post noted the following regarding LCILP:

When a Post reporter buzzed the door on several occasions during business hours last week, no one answered.

Until recently, the staff Web page had 33 people listed on it, including Joseph Mifsud. But the page was deleted on Oct. 23, a week before the Papadopoulos plea agreement was unsealed.

Several of those listed as being part of the “team” were only loosely affiliated — if at all.

The link to LCILP’s staffing is no longer functional.

Quartz Media had slightly more success:

When a Quartz reporter visited LCILP’s headquarters inside a handsome Georgian building, he found that the office amounted to four people working in an undecorated backroom, all of whom declined to comment.

Mifsud vanished in early November 2017, shortly after the Papadopoulos story broke. To my knowledge, his whereabouts remain unknown.

I’ve found four different meetings between Papadopoulos and Mifsud:

March 14, 2016 – First known meeting. Papadopoulos met Mifsud in Italy approximately one week after officially joining the Trump team.

March 24, 2016 – Papadopoulos, Mifsud, Olga Polonskaya and unknown fourth party met in a London cafe.

April 18, 2016 – Mifsud introduced Papadopoulos to Ivan Timofeev, an official at a state-sponsored think tank called Russian International Affairs Council.

April 26, 2016 – Mifsud claims to have met with high-level Russian government officials who have “dirt” on Clinton. Papadopoulos told the FBI that Mifsud said “the Russians had emails of Clinton” and “they have thousands of emails.”

Although the common story is that Mifsud is a Russian Agent, many ties seem to lead back to UK Intelligence.

Julian Assange put out a Twitter Thread noting the connection between Mifsud and UK Intelligence.

Disobedient Media has done a series of articles on Mifsud’s strange background – or lack thereof:

All Russiagate Roads Lead To London As Evidence Emerges Of Joseph Mifsud’s Links To UK Intelligence.

A Conversation With Chris Blackburn On The Contradictions Surrounding Mifsud.

Chris Blackburn Discusses Legacy Press Coverage Of Joseph Mifsud.

Chris Blackburn had this to say:

If Mifsud is a genuine Russian asset, he has been enabled by the United States’ most trusted allies. His relationship with senior intelligence and political leaders in Europe should constitute one of the greatest security breaches in decades.

I don’t have enough information to make a determination on Mifsud at this point, but I suspect ties with British Intelligence will prove accurate.

Mifsud was just the opening salvo directed at young Papadopoulos.

Let’s move forward to Papadopoulos and his May 10, 2016 meeting with Alexander Downer.

The Papadopoulos/Downer meeting has been portrayed as a chance encounter in a bar. That does not appear to be the case.

Papadopoulos was introduced to Downer through a chain of two intermediaries.

Papadopoulos knew an Israeli embassy official in London named Christian Cantor who introduced Papadopoulos to Erika Thompson.

Thompson was a counselor to Downer and served in Australia’s London embassy.

On May 4, 2016, Papadopoulos gave an interview to the London Times in which he stated then-UK Prime Minister David Cameron should apologize to Trump for negative comments.

According to the Daily Caller, Thompson reached out to Papadopoulos two days after the story appeared and said Downer wanted to meet with Papadopoulos.

The meeting between Papadopoulos and Downer took place on May 10, 2016:

During the meeting, which TheDCNF is told Thompson attended, Downer ordered Papadopoulos to “leave David Cameron alone.”

Downer has direct ties to UK Intelligence firm Hakluyt where he served on the Advisory Board from 2008-2014. See, Dearlove Connections – UK Intel Firm Hakluyt, Alexander Downer, Stefan Halper & Papadopoulos.

In late-July 2016, Australia’s ambassador to the U.S., Joe Hockey, told his American counterparts about Downer’s claims about the Papadopoulos conversation. The Aussies sat on the information for two months but revisited the Papadopoulos information after WikiLeaks released emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee.

That leak occurred on July 22, 2016. The FBI opened its counterintelligence investigation on July 31, 2016. Peter Strzok, the FBI’s deputy chief of counterintelligence at the time, oversaw the investigation.

Strzok texts suggest he was in London on August 3, 2016:

[Redacted’ talked about the Embassy. It’s the longest continuously staffed establishment in London.

That would be the Australian Embassy…

There was one more significant meeting yet to come.

A meeting with Stefan Halper.

On September 13, 2016 Papadopoulos accepted a meeting with Stefan Halper.

Halper approached Papadopoulos unbidden. Papadopoulos had no prior contact with Halper.

Halper, who has connections to CIA & UK Intelligence, asked Papadopoulos: “George, you know about hacking the emails from Russia, right?”

Stefan Halper is a Cambridge Fellow. He was a Senior Policy Advisor to Presidents Nixon, Ford & Reagan (bio here).

Halper has a close association with former MI6 Head Richard Dearlove.

Halper had previously invited Carter Page to attend a July 2016 symposium held at Cambridge regarding the upcoming election. The speaker list was notable:

Madeleine Albright (former U.S. Secretary of State)
Vin Weber (Republican Party strategist and former Congressman)
Ambassador Peter Ammon (German Ambassador to the UK)
Sir Richard Dearlove (former head of MI6)
Bridget Kendall (BBC diplomatic correspondent and the next Master of Peterhouse College)
Sir Malcolm Rifkind (former Defence and Foreign Secretary)

Page attended the symposium just four days after his July 2016 Moscow trip. Page met with Halper during the London visit. Page’s Moscow trip would figure prominently in the Steele Dossier…

Halper also requested – and attained – a meeting with another, unknown, Trump Campaign member on September 11, 2016 – two days before the Papadopoulos meeting.

Halper “offered to help the campaign” but did not mention the Papadopoulos meeting to the second staffer – nor the staffer meeting to Papadopoulos.

Curiously, despite the offers of campaign help, on November 3, 2016, Halper publicly stated that Clinton would be the best option for US-UK relations.

One other particularly interesting note.

Halper has connections to the UK Intelligence firm Hakluyt through Jonathan Clarke, with whom he has co-authored two books. You can find a June 2004 video of the pair discussing their first book here.

Jonathan Clarke is the U.S. Representative – Director U.S. Operations for Hakluyt. Clarke is a fairly public figure – but it was quite difficult to locate references to his association with Hakluyt.

Given the lengthy association between Halper and Clarke, I expect we will find additional ties between Halper, other members of Hakluyt and members of British Intelligence.

Halper’s association with former MI6 Head Richard Dearlove – via their previous positions at Cambridge Intelligence Seminar – is already known.

Note: For more on Hakluyt see Dearlove Connections – UK Intel Firm Hakluyt, Alexander Downer, Stefan Halper & Papadopoulos.

Halper is still remembered for one other event. From a 1983 UPI article:

The New York Times reported the Reagan campaign headquarters conducted a data-gathering operation to collect inside information on Carter foreign policy and used a number of former CIA officials in the effort.

It said Stefan Halper, a campaign aide who handled communications for Bush and provided news updates and policy ideas to the traveling Reagan party, was in charge of the operation.

Papadopoulos speculated to the Daily Caller that the Downer/Halper meetings may have been a spy operation.

As to questions about Papadopoulos’ complicity in all this, the FBI didn’t bother to interview Papadopoulos until January 27, 2017.

Consider the timeline:

Late February or early March 2016 – Papadopoulos lands a prestigious sounding job that immediately pads his resume.

Early March 2016 – Papadopoulos learns he will become a foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign.

March 14, 2016 – Papadopoulos first meets Mifsud in Italy – approximately one week after officially joining the Trump team.

March 24, 2016 – Papadopoulos, Mifsud, Olga Polonskaya and unknown fourth party met in a London cafe.

April 18, 2016 – Mifsud introduced Papadopoulos to Ivan Timofeev, an official at a state-sponsored think tank called Russian International Affairs Council.

May 4, 2016 – Papadopoulos gives his interview to the London Times. It is not well-received in London.

May 10, 2016 – Papadopoulos meets with Australian Diplomat Alexander Downer. It is Downer who seeks out the meeting.

May/June 2016 – Halper invites Carter Page to July 2016 Cambridge symposium regarding the upcoming election.

July 11, 2016 – Carter Page attends symposium with Halper just four days after his July 2016 Moscow trip.

July 31, 2016 – FBI opens Counterintelligence Investigation into Trump-Russia connections.

August 2-3, 2016 – Strzok travels to London to meet unknown party at Australian Embassy.

September 13, 2016 – Papadopoulos accepts a meeting with Stefan Halper. Halper, who has connections to CIA & UK Intelligence, asked Papadopoulos: “George, you know about hacking the emails from Russia, right?”

My guess is Papadopoulos never knew what hit him. A young man, suddenly thrust into a position beyond his experience, Papadopoulos made for an easy intelligence target.

Carter Page almost certainly discussed the just completed Moscow trip with his host, Stefan Halper, during the London symposium.

It’s now being reported that Devin Nunes has learned the identity of a “top secret intelligence source” that was part of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Investigation.

I think there’s a decent chance that source is Stefan Halper.

Halper had contact with both Papadopulos and Carter Page. Halper has connections to UK Intelligence and US Intelligence. Halper met with Carter Page just days after Page’s Moscow trip.

Stefan Halper would seem a good fit as the “FBI source”.

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