FBI alerted by Australia to Trump advisor Papadopoulos’ boasting
Developments on Day 345 of the Trump Administration:
“Russia Has Dirt on Clinton”
The New York Times reveals that the FBI was alerted to possible Trump-Russia collusion by the indiscreet boast of a Donald Trump advisor to Australia’s High Commissioner in Britain in May 2016.
Drinking at the Kensington Wine Room in London, George Papadopoulos, the 28-year-old “foreign policy advisor”, told Alexander Downer that Russia had “political dirt” which would damage Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
Pursuing a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Papadopoulos had been told weeks earlier by London-based academic Joseph Mifsud, an intermediary for Russian officials, that Moscow had thousands of stolen Clinton e-mails.
See Timeline: Trump-Russia Connections and Clinton’s E-mails
In July, when leaked e-mails from the Democratic National Committee and Clinton’s advisors began appearing online, Australian officials passed the information about the meeting to American counterparts.
The episode in London confirms that the FBI was not relying upon a Trump-Russia dossier, compiled by a former British intelligence officer for the private firm Fusion GPS, for the launch of its investigation. The White House and Trump’s allies, including Republican legislators and Fox News, have been trying to undermine the FBI and Special Counsel Robert Mueller with the claim of a suspect inquiry based on the dossier of 17 memoranda of meetings between Trump’s advisors and Russian officials and Moscow’s possible financial input into the campaign.
The revelation of Papadopoulos’ meeting has a wider significance: it establishes that the Trump campaign knew of the Russian offer of anti-Clinton material weeks before Donald Trump Jr. set up a meeting with three Kremlin-linked envoys to discuss the possible supply of the information.
The London-based academic Mifsud, who became interested in Papadopoulos in March after he learned of the advisor’s involvement in the Trump campaign, set up a link with Ivan Timofeev, a program director for Moscow’s Valdai Discussion Club and an intermediary with the Russian Foreign Ministry. Despite later claims that Papadopoulos was just a low-level staffer, he was encouraged by senior campaign staff to pursue the contacts.
Papadopoulos pleaded guilty in early October to lying to investigators and has been cooperating with Mueller’s team.