Hey, he said so--and it's about John Durham. Papadopoulos says Durham is "very real", "incredibly real", and that Durham will expose a conspiracy in the Obama administration--based on what Durham has learned about Joseph Mifsud. Durham is currently just waiting for the right moment, perhaps after the audit in AZ is finished.
"I would actually put my entire reputation on the line saying this…"
"I’m on the record of saying I put my reputation on the line regarding Durham."
Read it all at TGP.
I'm still skeptical. There was plenty of time to produce the Mifsud evidence. But I'll happily eat crow if it turns out to be true.
UPDATE: I want to be clear that my skepticism, as expressed above, only runs to Papadopoulos' expectations regarding Durham's supposed investigation. As I said, there's been plenty of time for substantial results, so I'm not optimistic. However, none of that means that I'm skeptical regarding Papadopoulos' accounts of what happened to him in London (events surround Alexander Downer), in Rome (events surrounding Joseph Mifsud), in Israel, and upon his return to the US (his dealings with the FBI and Team Mueller). I find his accounts to be believable in their essential details--even if they may be self serving in some respects. The self serving respects are to be expected from most witnesses. On the other hand, his accounts of his adventures as a dupe in the Russia Hoax have never seriously been contested--in my opinion. Think of him what you will, but that's not really the point.
It just doesn’t matter.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, it doesn’t. We are living proof of it.
Yes, I think Trump won hands down and if proven correct ... so?
Biden still prez and most of the electorate has no real issues or reason to refute because you can’t.
As Surber states, learn how to steal better.
If true, yes, but until then... yawn.
ReplyDeleteHopefully in the future he can follow up with a nice civil suit against the FBI and DOJ.
ReplyDeleteAnyone hear anything on Carter Page's suit? That should be aging into discovery by now.
Agree on being skeptical.
ReplyDeleteSounds like Papadoploulos just said something to get attention, and has no information.
With what Barr allowed Wray and others to bury gives me little hope.
Perhaps Durham is giving Biden a 100 days before dropping a major scandal, but it feels like wishful thinking,
Papadopoulos is incredibly unreal. Him and Carter Page and hell I'll throw in Manafort and General Flynn, way too wishy washy in their outrage, way to temperate in their umbrage, way too circumspect in their criticism of IC. I'd like one of them to just say the name John Brennan or hell even Gina Haspell, let alone implicate, expose, out or cast some damn aspersions... Mifsud, give me a break.
ReplyDeleteMark A. (while I did die in the violent explosion of my house, the explosion was not caused by a gas leak)
Gen Flynn... "knows where all the bodies are buried"
Deleteyeah, still waiting for him to uncover some of those bodies
even just a leak of where some bones might be... is that too much to ask?
Frank
"I would actually put my entire reputation on the line saying this…"
ReplyDelete"I’m on the record of saying I put my reputation on the line..."
George, holdonnasec here buddy. WHAT reputation??? Your rep is being a credulous, naive fall guy. What do you think your reputation is, pal?
There was plenty of time to produce the Mifsud evidence.
ReplyDeleteThe most important information to be produced is the arrangement of the Mifsud/Papadopoulos meeting. Who told those two to meet?
Papadopoulos says he was told to do so by Avinder Sambei, acting for the FBI in London.
I have the impression that Papadopoulos's Italian wife has learned from Italian Government officials details about the international arrangement of the meeting.
I speculate that Michael Gaeta, an FBI official stationed at the US Embassy in Rome, played a key role in arranging the meeting.
A role for Gaeta is certainly a possibility. And that adds to the mystery of why Durham/Barr seemingly produced NOTHING for two years. That would be especially puzzling given their very early focus on Mifsud, their travel to Rome, obtaining Mifsud's phones. etc. Also their travel to London, and the remark by Brit intel that they seemed intent on turning US intel inside out.
DeleteI think that Gaeta cooperated minimally with the investigation conducted by FBI Inspector General Horowitz. I find in the Horowitz report puzzling gaps that involve Gaeta.
DeleteFor example, the Horowitz report indicates uncertainties about what Gaeta did with the Dossier reports that he received from Steele. The Horowitz reports that Gaeta's supervisor at the US Embassy in Rome did not know for sure what Gaeta did with the reports. Apparently, Horowitz was not able to obtain explanations from Gaeta himself.
Or else, if Gaeta did explain himself, then his explanations were kept out of the Horowitz report deliberately. That decision might indicate that prosecution of Gaeta was being considered.
-----
The Horowitz report is primarily about the FBI's reasoning and actions to obtain a FISA warrant against Papadopoulos. Nevertheless, the Horowitz has puzzling, big gaps in its discussion of Papadopoulos. For example, his meeting with Mifsud is barely mentioned (or perhaps is not mentioned at all).
Was the Papadopoulos-Mifsud meeting absolutely irrelevant to the FBI's reasoning and actions in investigating Papadoloulos? Of course, not.
It seems to me that the Horowtiz report's gaps in basic information indicate area where prosecutions were being considered.
Mike, remember in evaluating Horowitz's report that his mandate ran only to the Carter Page FISAs. Thus, while in investigating the FISAs he touched on many matters, but the focus remained on the FISAs. He was not free to follow out every matter of interest. Thus, the value of what he did, but also the limitations to it. Also, bear in mind that an IG doesn't have GJ powers, so his investigation is limited re what evidence or testimony he can compel. Gaeta, of course was/is still a DoJ employee, but the scope of the FISA investigation probably didn't run to all that you or I might want to ask Gaeta.
DeleteLongtime readers might recall that over the years Mark and I have had a mild running disagreement over Papadopoulos' bona fides. I have proposed that Carter Page, Papadopoulos, Sam Clovis and even Flynn were all Deep State plants in the Trump campaign. There is (varying degrees of) evidence that each was associated with the intelligence community before joining the campaign. Of course there are plenty of good arguments contra, but hey, if they were going to escape detection (as plants) there would have to be...right? These guys aren't complete idiots? Are they?
ReplyDeleteIn saying this, I'm not saying that the plants weren't ultimately sorely misused...and sacrificed... by the Deep State conspiracy. Nobody anticipated when, for example, Carter Page was placed in the campaign that Donald Trump would actually win the election. The stakes escalated and the plants had to be expended. I have argued that this is exactly what happened to Page and Papadopoulos. The Flynn case is mind bending and defies rational comprehension but it doesn't change the fact that Flynn was a career intelligence officer who found his way into an improbable political campaign.
Whether or not I'm right, this article does nothing to change my suspicions about PapaD. It doesn't help the credibility of the article (with me, anyway) that PapaD's wife's name is misspelled in the very first paragraph of the article. Or that Sidney Powell's name is misspelled later on. And TGP has been wrong too many times to not also take its credibility with a few lumps of salt.
Having said all that, if Papadopoulos is wrong, and Durham comes up empty after two years (or more) investigation and asphyxiation-level smoke all over the Russia Hoax, people like us who have been closely following the Crossfire Hurricane/Mueller Committee/Durham Investigation clown show are going to go batsh*t crazy.
It will be the Mother of All Coverups.
@ Cassandar
DeleteWhere Page is concerned I believe you are correct. He spent too much time working with the IC to not have known something was up. I'm personally banking on his lawsuit giving us more disclosure than any "report" ever will. If it doesn't or they settle it, I think there's your answer on his participation.
I think Papa got caught up, ignorance can often look like complicity. Mark's point of self serving just makes him look overly suspicious. In the end his career was destroyed and I don't think a book deal will make up for that.
Flynn I was suspicious of for a long time but I think the price he paid personally was to great to have been double dipping. If so, they all went to the nines in yucking it up.
Clovis who knows... I think his inexperience like Papa just makes him look incredibly dumb from the point of armchair retrospect.
Some answers would be nice but accepting anything given to us will probably be impossible. One things for sure, being a negative Nancy and absolute cynic of all parties has proven to be not so negative or cynical.
I have certainly entertained the possibility that one or all of those were plants in the Trump campaign. The only one I think we can definitively remove from that theory is Flynn- they went way too hard after him in a criminal investigation. Additionally, I think we can also remove Papadopoulos from the plant list- he was literally a nobody, and they also went after him with a criminal investigation.
DeleteNow, Clovis and Page are in a different category. I definitely think Clovis was a GOP-e plant in the Trump Campaign, but Page I think might well have been planted in the campaign by the FBI, but they may not have given him any indication as to why they did so.
I've seen no evidence that Page was 'planted' in the Trump campaign by the FBI, but evidence that they learned about Page joining the campaign *after the fact.*
DeleteThere's no doubt that the FBI went after Page *very* hard. He was interviewed at considerable length on multiple occasions. Not just once or twice.
OTOH, I'm open to the idea that some GOPe operative encouraged Page to join the campaign, or maybe suggested Page's name to the campaign, with the idea that his Russian connections could be used to discredit Trump. An attempt that was made very quickly.
@Mark
Delete"I've seen no evidence that Page was 'planted' in the Trump campaign by the FBI..."
Were you expecting them to call you up and admit it? Like they've rolled over and admitted everything that has been discovered so far?
"There's no doubt that the FBI went after Page *very* hard."
So hard they indicted him after getting four FISAs on him which alleged (preposterously) that he was a Russian agent.
Not.
Here's where I am coming from. Carter Page is a career intelligence operative. There is no evidence that he ever had a strongly held political point of view in his life. He volunteered as a political advisor (for the first time in his life) to work for Trump. He was then conveniently available to be used to discredit Trump.
Accident?
Respectfully, I'm not buying it. Fortunately, this is still a place (I hope) where we can disagree.
@Yancey
Delete"Flynn- they went way too hard after him in a criminal investigation."
There was a time when I would have thought so, too. My turning point was Kavanaugh. I no longer believe there is anything they won't do.
That's not to say that Flynn wasn't horribly mistreated. But there's nothing they wouldn't do to stop Trump. Going hard on Flynn is nothing.
"Additionally, I think we can also remove Papadopoulos from the plant list- he was literally a nobody, and they also went after him with a criminal investigation."
Why does it matter if he is a 'nobody'? He may well have been a 'useful' nobody who was set up to be used in a 'Plan B' if necessary. If he was a 'nobody' why did the Deep State wind him up to (falsely) allege treasonous Russian Collusion against the Trump Campaign? Again, in an attempt to bring Trump down? Essentially a coup attempt...
I may be alone here in believing this is possible, but, again, I'm not buying that there were somehow 'limits' on what they would do to bring Trump down.
Cassander, you left out important portions of what I said. There IS evidence that the FBI only found out about Page joining the campaign after he did so. There is also strong evidence that they were seriously looking to frame him because of his actions in a very important NY case. There is no doubt of their serious displeasure with Page.
DeleteHe had openly expressed views on Russia that were at variance with well established US policy of the Interagency--and volunteered for Trump's campaign because Trump was vocally in favor of finding ways to work with Russia.
He went public about the FBI leaking about him months before the election--not the action of a plant.
@Mark
Delete"There IS evidence that the FBI only found out about Page joining the campaign after he did so."
That doesn't mean the Conspirators didn't plant him in the Campaign without the knowledge of some FBI agents who then 'found out' about him.
"He had openly expressed views on Russia that were at variance with well established US policy of the Interagency--and volunteered for Trump's campaign because Trump was vocally in favor of finding ways to work with Russia."
He would, wouldn't he? How else to get hired on to the Campaign as a "Trump Supporter"?
"He went public about the FBI leaking about him months before the election--not the action of a plant."
But was it the action of a plant who was simply trying not to look like a plant?
Look, I don't want to over-pitch my case. There is still so much we don't know. Carter Page may have been a disgruntled intelligence asset who woke up one day in 2016 and genuinely felt that the Interagency perspective on Russia was hurting the American People and that only one man -- Donald Trump -- could save the country. So, despite having never been politically active during his entire life and not even having a real job or visible means of support he volunteered for an unpaid senior advisory position in a populist campaign which we now know was despised by the Deep State and was immediately hired on to the Campaign by...Sam Clovis? And proceeded to have absolutely zero real input into the Campaign (did he ever even meet Trump?) except for being conveniently available to be accused of being a Russian agent when the need arose? Except that when accused (in the FISA application) he had already left the Campaign?
Maybe Carter Page was genuinely pissed when the Conspirators outed him as a "Russian agent". Maybe that wasn't part of the deal. Maybe he thought his job was something else, maybe just to listen to what Trump was saying and doing and report back and not to be publicly outed as a colluding and bribe-taking traitor.
Or maybe it was all part of the script. If the Deep State could find millions to compensate Halper for pretending to be an innocent Cambridge don then I'm sure there were more than a few bucks left over to compensate Carter Page for pretending to be a Donald Trump supporter.
Or maybe I'm all wrong. Maybe I'm hung up on just another...conspiracy theory. :-)
"Carter Page may have been a disgruntled intelligence asset who woke up one day in 2016 and genuinely felt that the Interagency perspective on Russia was hurting the American People and that only one man -- Donald Trump -- could save the country."
DeleteCP spent his entire life from college on cultivating all things Russian. He immersed himself in the Russian language, Russian culture, lived in Russia, worked in Russia, continued working with Russians and traveling to Russia, advocated for change in US policy before Trump ran. I've known many people like that--including in the IC. Working for the IC or as adjuncts to the IC does not in any way prevent them from advocating the Russian viewpoint on business and politics and culture. They don't cease to be Americans. CP may personally be a weird dude, but he's nowhere close to being a dumb dude. As such he had value for the CIA regardless of his views. But it's totally unsurprising to me that, with his views and background, he should decide at his stage in life to get involved in a political campaign. When the one thing he did during the campaign (deliver an address in Moscow) wound up in the dossier and media leaks, he publicly protested.
"CP spent his entire life from college on cultivating all things Russian."
DeleteBut...it is also just as arguably true that Carter Page spent his entire life from college on as an intelligence asset of various arms of the United States Government. The two are not mutually exclusive.
And, in fact, came in rather handy in 2016...
"Carter Page spent his entire life from college on as an intelligence asset of various arms of the United States Government."
DeleteI've NEVER suggested otherwise. Being an intel asset doesn't exclude having sympathy for the Russian or Chinese POV. The FBI in NY found that out re Page, and that's what soured the FBI on Page--you're not taking that case seriously, but the FBI did. It's on paper that they did. Providing routine intel re Russians he came in contact with was far different than being asked to spy on the one candidate whose views he might be in sympathy with.
@Mark
Delete"Being an intel asset doesn't exclude having sympathy for the Russian or Chinese POV."
And conveniently so.
It would be nice to know who was paying Carter Page's bills in 2016. The "Sympathy with Russia Club" or the CIA...
:-)
He was closed by the CIA in about 2013 when the FBI started using him in a criminal case against Russian intel officers. He was closed by the FBI in about March, 2016, when he told the FBI that he had told Russian officials he was working for the FBI. I doubt he earned much from either agency, but he was running his consulting business.
DeleteMark, I hadn't understood that Carter Page was 'closed' by both agencies as you describe. If you have the time (with your new duties), can you give me a couple of links that you believe are pretty probative? I won't concede (yet) that being 'closed' means you can't work for them anymore...but I am curious whether (and to what extent) he really was sideways with the IC when he joined the Trump Campaign...
DeleteHe was closed by the CIA not for cause but because the FBI wanted to use him in a criminal investigation and he wasn't that important to the CIA--so the CIA went along with that plan. Obviously once he was 'burned' in a criminal investigation against Russians he'd be useless to the CIA. He was sideways with the FBI because by exposing himself to Russians as working for the FBI he probably was confirming to them certain sensitive operational techniques that the FBI had used.
DeleteMark
DeleteSo, after investing decades...a lot of time and money... its not cheap training spies...in Carter Page, the CIA and FBI had to close Page down...because he wasn't 'that important' and he was 'burned'...investment down the drain!
But no. There was still a role for Page! He could be drafted to act as a goofy and useless volunteer 'adviser' to the Trump Campaign with imaginary, made-up connections to certain Russians and who could then be set up to serve as a (the?) critical cog in the Deep State's obsessive conspiracy to destroy Donald Trump.
I'm sorry, Mark, you haven't convinced me. Maybe there is more and better evidence that Page was on the up and up. I'd still like to see it. It seems I haven't convinced you either.
At the end of the day, as in the case of Mr. Barr, as far as I'm concerned:
Once CIA, always CIA, and
there are no coincidences.
And, as John LeCarre said in his Moscow Rules:
Everyone is potentially under opposition control.
Carter Page, a "spy"? A "trained spy"? Where did you get that idea? I think you've totally misunderstood who Page was/is and what his role was. No, neither the CIA nor the FBI invested time and money into training Page to be a "spy". Page was not an employee of either agency. He was an informant. It's in all the files that those agencies maintained, including the CIA characterization of its relationship with Page that was sent to Clinesmith.
DeleteI'm staying positive as I posted a few weeks ago on this subject. I don't trust PapaD and won't bet on this, but I remain optimistic. Durham's reputation is too strong for him not to continue to take this seriously. Plus I'm used to being disappointed.
ReplyDeleteI seen them as more reflective of the incompetence/ naivety of our elite, and their constant hustling for their next meal ticket.
ReplyDelete>Carter Page, Papadopoulos, Sam Clovis and even Flynn
Clovis was more targeted.
Maybe.
DeleteBy the way, Ray, could you e-mail me at twixella@aol.com?
It's a rigged game, to the extent that even reading this article heading it may as well have read "Alleged gambling at Ricks joint."
ReplyDelete