UPDATED: George Papadoploulos Puts His Entire Reputation On The Line

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.

Undercover Huber's Analysis Of The Railroading of Papadopoulos

Earlier today Undercover Huber posted a masterful thread exposing the railroading of George Papadopoulos by Team Mueller. You can read it all here, but I want to highlight the part that really struck me, which has to do with Papadopoulos's initial appearance before a federal magistrate. This occurred the day after he was arrested at Dulles Airport, after reentering the US without the cash that had been planted on him in hopes of setting him up on a money laundering charge. It looks to me like a classic violation of the Right to Counsel.

The more you read about the Papadopoulos case the more you're impressed with how hard Team Mueller and the FBI worked at framing him. The sheer malevolence--the word UC Huber uses--is pretty stunning.

Here are those excerpts re the initial appearance:


Undercover Huber
@JohnWHuber

That sealed Court appearance in Virginia lasted 4 mins, was delayed by hrs (GP left detention for the courthouse at 08:30am, it didn't start until 03:02pm) & was presided over by only a Magistrate Judge (who then just transferred case to DC) who spelled BVGs name wrong as "Gratt”.

11:48 AM · May 24, 2020

Papadoupolos wasn’t represented by Counsel at that initial appearance, even though he had been represented by the same Counsel (Thomas Breen and co.) since Feb 2017, who had attended multiple FBI interviews with him too. The Mag Judge wasn’t made aware of this by the SCO.

Yet GP's Counsel (Mr. Breen) had been informed of GP's arrest and spoken to GP twice the night before  (see FD-302 extracts) & knew of his court appearance the next day (see extract from Politico interview) So this "obstruction" charge is really going “by the book” so far .

The overall effect on the disorientated @GeorgePapa19 appears to have been profound. He describes in his book how he took the “serious jail time” threat seriously, fearing spending *25 years in prison.* Note: he'd never even been arrested before & had no Counsel present to help.

What GP's lawyers could've said at that initial hearing is out of scope of this thread - they could've noted GP didn't even commit those alleged crimes in "D.C" (they took place in Illinois, so the venue was wrong) & his lawyers *personally knew the obstruction charge was false*

Now here is Undercover Huber's overall conclusion, which he wrote up separately. Obviously I don't agree with UC Huber's notion that Barr and Durham are about to let Kevin Clinesmith off "scot free." Nevertheless, the narrative is compelling, and I wouldn't want to be in Clinesmith's shoes when it comes time to pay the piper.

The Crossfire Hurricane Opening EC--Predication And The Way Forward

Late yesterday a redacted version of the Crossfire Hurricane Opening EC was released to Judicial Watch. Hopefully a cleaner version will be out in the not too distant future. I understand that AG Barr is playing all of this close to the vest as John Durham prepares his case, but the redaction of information that We The People really should have access to is offensive. After all, we all know what the redactions are about: The identity of foreign governments and their operatives--and some of our own operatives--who colluded in a coup attempt against the established government of the United States. Democracy dies in darkness, as the WaPo has taken to saying, and the identities of all governments and operatives who conspired against our constitutional order need to be made known.

That said, the Opening EC--a Peter Strzok production--is as absurd as expected. Here's the gist of it, actually a very lightly edited paraphrase. It really is as threadbare in terms of predication as this summary indicates:

The [Redacted - but presumed to be Australian] government had been seeking prominent members of the Donald Trump campaign in which to engage to prepare for potential post-election relations should Trump be elected U.S. President. One of the people identified was George Papadopoulos. Mr. Papdopoulos was located in [Redacted - presumed London] so the [Redacted - presumed to be Alexander Downer] met with him on several occasions, with [Redacted] attending at least one of the meetings.

Note what's being said there. Against all odds, this Australian/US operative who claimed to be seeking "prominent members of the Trump campaign" came up with George Papadopoulos. (It tells you something about our Embassy/CIA staff that they were unable to identify the correct spelling of such a common Greek name.) We're supposed to believe that after active consideration of the possible candidates in the Trump campaign one of the top Australian diplomats decide to spend his time cultivating the likes of George Papadopoulos. Not only that, but it's clear from a quick read between the lines that Papadopoulos was not a target of opportunity--he had to be "located". IOW, Downer, or his US handlers, went looking for Papadopoulos, a sort of Quest for the Ideal Fallguy.

How's This For Predication

Regular readers will recall that, according to the Attorney General Guidelines for the FBI's National Security Investigations, in order to obtain a FISA warrant the FBI must first have a Full Investigation opened. Once again, below is the required predication for opening a Full Investigation. Note that the difference between a Full and a Preliminary Investigation is that in the case of a Full the FBI must be able to cite "specific and articulable facts that give reason to believe that a [described] circumstance ... exists." Meaning, specific and articulable facts that give reason to believe that the circumstance actually exists. In a Preliminary Investigation the standard is that the circumstance may exist. Among the practical differences that arise from this distinction is that in the case of the Full Investigation the FBI is allowed to use more intrusive investigative techniques--specifically, FISA.

Here are the relevant parts of the Guidelines, and I've highlighted the portions that would logically apply in the circumstances that the FBI claimed gave rise to the Crossfire Hurricane Full Investigation:

FBI Headquarters or a field office may initiate a full investigation if there are specific and articulable facts that give reason to believe that a circumstance described in Part II.B.l of these Guidelines exists.  

Part II.B. 

1. Circumstances for Opening an Investigation 

The circumstances on which the initiation of a ... full investigation may be based are: 

a. An individual is ... an international terrorist or an agent of a foreign power.

b. A group or organization is ... a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power,c. ...

d. An individual, group, or organization is ... engaging, or has ... engaged, in activities constituting a threat to the national security (or related preparatory or support activities) for or on behalf of a foreign power.

e. A crime involved in or related to a threat to the national security has ... occurred, is ... occurring, or will ... occur. 

f. An individual, group, or organization is ... the target of a recruitment or infiltration effort by an international terrorist, foreign power, or agent of a foreign power under circumstances related to a threat to the national security. 

g. An individual, group, organization, entity, information, property, or activity is ... a target of international terrorism, espionage, foreign computer intrusion, or other threat to the national security. 

For a long time I was absolutely convinced that Crossfire Hurricane could only have been opened based on the Steele dossier's claims with regard to Carter Page. I assumed that the FBI had had access to the early "reports" from the dossier, in which Steele stated that Page was coordinating with Paul Manafort on behalf of the Trump campaign with high level Russian officials to obtain collusive electoral assistance from the Russians. The FBI claimed for a long time that it hadn't had that access, but that now appears to be yet another, um, misstatement:

Avenues Of Inquiry Into Team Mueller?

Today at CTH sundance does an overall nice job of evaluating an important document: a letter from Assistant Attorney General John C. Demers to Rosemary Collyer, Chief Judge of the FISC (the "FISA Court"). Demers, you might like to know, succeeded John P. Carlin as head of the National Security Division, as of February 22, 2018. Here's his Wikipedia bio:

Prior to his post in the United States Department of Justice, Demers served as the vice president and assistant general counsel at Boeing. Demers clerked for Diarmuid O'Scannlain of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court of the United States. He worked in private practice before serving in the Office of Legal Counsel. Demers was on the leadership team of the United States Department of Justice National Security Division, first as senior counsel to the Assistant Attorney General and then as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Law & Policy. Demers is an adjunct professor of national security law at Georgetown University Law Center.

Demers' letter was dated July 12, 2018--in other words, at the height of the Mueller Witchhunt, with high hopes in the air that the Dems would retake the House in November and use the Mueller Dossier to impeach President Trump. What this letter is all about is the fact that, as a result of the efforts--largely--of Devin Nunes, serious and persistent questions had been raised publicly about the fraudulent nature of the Carter Page FISA order (and its three renewals). By the time Demers wrote his letter to the FISC it was well known that the application for the FISA had been largely based on materials developed by opposition research contractors working for the Hillary Clinton campaign, and that those materials were as suspect as that characterization makes them sound. Another major source behind the FISA application, it was well known by then, had been undercover FBI assets and foreign operatives who were used to target persons in the Trump campaign--"with no basis", as AG Bill Barr recently put it.

Nice Margot Cleveland Article On FBI Targeting Of Papadopoulos

I don't want to quote much from Margot Cleveland's article,

Newly Declassified Papadopoulos Transcript Exposes Crossfire Hurricane Corruption

A newly declassified transcript calls into question the entire Crossfire Hurricane investigation: Why was it started, and why did it continue?

because it deserves to be read in full. What I like about it is that it gives an insight into the kind of thinking that was swirling around (think: toilet bowl) in the Crossfire Hurricane team. Either the top levels of the FBI were staffed by complete bozos who could not distinguish what they wanted to be true from their obligation to share relevant information with professionals who might come to a different conclusion, or ... they were totally corrupt.

Here's the short story.

Oh My! The Papadopoulos Transcript!

Yeah, this is pretty big. Catherine Herridge at CBS News has published what appears to be a partial transcript of the recorded conversation between George Papadopoulos and an FBI Confidential Human Source. The conversation took place in "late October, 2016."

Here's the big picture as I see it. Recall that Crossfire Hurricane--the entire Russia Hoax investigation--was purportedly predicated on an earlier conversation between Papadopoulos and Aussie "diplomat" Alexander Downer. The Papadopoulos - Downer conversation took place in May, 2016, and the FBI's use of it to initiate Crossfire Hurricane is highly suspect.

This October conversation of Papadopoulos with the FBI CHS directly undercuts any rationale for opening Crossfire Hurricane as a Full Investigation. Further, by mid-January the FBI knew for sure--if they ever really had any doubts--that the Russia Hoax was nothing but a hoax. And yet this hoax investigation then served as the basis for the Mueller Witchhunt--despite the FBI being fully aware of what Papadopoulos had said to their CHS. Not only that, but Team Mueller proceeded to make repeated attempts to frame Papadopoulos and eventually hounded him into a joke guilty plea and joke 14 day sentence--jokes that would have been thigh slappingly hilarious but for the effect on Papadopoulos' life.

Herridge points out that information about Papadopoulos' denials of any Russian involvement with the Trump campaign or Trump campaign involvement with the DNC "hack" were withheld from the Carter Page FISA applications and were also withheld from Stu Evans at the DoJ's Office of Intelligence. Evans was in charge of reviewing FISA applications and was known to be skeptical of the Carter Page application--we have texts of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page complaining about Evans and wanting to get pressure on him to comply. Who thinks Durham has interviewed Evans in depth?

I agree with Papadopoulos--this is the stuff conspiracy cases are made of, and Team Mueller will likely be very much involved in that:

George Papadopoulos
@GeorgePapa19 

My profanity laced interview with yet another loser informant has been published. I promise you there is a conspiracy case being built around this frame job. I know exactly who it is. 

9:45 PM · Apr 8, 2020

And just today Bill Barr repeated for Laura Ingraham:

“What happened to POTUS was one of the greatest travesties in American history, no basis for this investigation, what’s even more concerning is what happened after the campaign, a whole pattern of events... to sabotage the presidency”

Here below is the cleaned up version of the transcript from Herridge's reporting. You can be sure there are people squirming over this. And people think Obama wants to jump into the 2020 campaign? With this and lots more swirling around?

Kevin Clinesmith And The Papadopoulos Interrogation

A few days ago we took a look at recently released FBI 302s reporting on the FBI interviews of George Papadopoulos: Devin Nunes Looking At Team Mueller Lying Re Papadopoulos. Our conclusion was that when those 302s are compared with the sentencing memo re Papadopoulos, the picture that emerges is that the FBI really had no interest at all in the substance of what Papadopoulos had to say about his conversations with Joseph Mifsud. They knew that Papadopoulos was telling the truth--that Mifsud had told him about the Russians supposedly having Hillary's emails--because Mifsud had told Papadopoulos exactly what the FBI had told him to tell Papadopoulos. Instead, the whole point of the lengthy interrogations of Papadopoulos was to get him to change what he had said about the timing of his conversations with Mifsud.

There's a review of Papadopoulos' book, Deep State Target, at American Greatness: The FBI Considered Joseph Mifsud an Asset. The concluding portion of the review recounts a portion of Papadopoulos' recollection of his interrogation by the FBI, which bears directly on our earlier discussion of what motivated the FBI:

... when the FBI interviewed Papadopoulos, the FBI interrogators showed very little interest in the source of Mifsud’s information.  

“One of the investigators is an FBI lawyer named Kevin Clinesmith,” Papadopoulos writes. “And he seems to be leading a lot of this inquisition.” 

Papadopoulos was asked over and over to name anyone in the Trump campaign with whom he may have shared the Mifsud emails story. “I keep waiting for someone to ask me about Mifsud himself. But nobody seems to care about him. I can’t believe these people are not interested in the source of this information.”  

In a later exchange, Papadopoulos is subjected to another round of questioning that becomes so repetitive and suggestive that Papadopoulos asks, “I don’t know if you are trying to implant a memory in my mind, or what. But I cannot sit here and tell you I told [the Trump campaign] about emails when I don’t have a memory of doing that.”  

That didn’t stop the Mueller team. They continued for seven hours, suggesting Papadopoulos had indeed told the Trump campaign about the hacked email rumor that Mifsud fed to him.  

“Unfortunately,” Papadopoulos writes, “the truth was not what they wanted to hear. No matter how much Robert Mueller and his team of FBI agents and prosecutors wished I had told the campaign members about Mifsud’s claim, I hadn’t.” 

The interesting aspect to this, of course, is that Kevin Clinesmith has already admitted to submitting fraudulently altered documents to the FISC. IG Horowitz referred Clinesmith's case to John Durham for consideration of criminal prosecution of Clinesmith. I assume that when Clinesmith was selected to interview Papadopoulos, there was more to that decision than Weissmann popping into Clinesmith's office and saying, 'Hey, why don't you go talk to Papadopoulos, OK?' This was an interview that could have potentially led to Trump's impeachment and removal from office, so I assume that many hours of preparation went into that interrogation. I further assume that Durham and his team want Clinesmith to tell them all about that preparation, in excruciating detail. They will want to know who made the decisions, who led the discussion of tactics, goals, etc. What they hoped to obtain from Papadopoulos.

UPDATED: Devin Nunes Looking At Team Mueller Lying Re Papadopoulos

UPDATE: A new article at Just the News expands on Lee Smith's earlier piece:

House Republicans considering criminal referrals against Mueller prosecutors 

Rep. Devin Nunes says action could force DOJ to look at conduct of Mueller team, accuracy of final Russia report.

Nunes is talking about referring the Team Mueller prosecutors to DoJ.


Lee Smith has a very interesting article today at John Solomon's new site, Just the News:

Declassified FBI memos undercut Mueller team claims that Papadopoulos hindered Russia probe

Prosecutor who recently resigned from Roger Stone case signed court filings omitting evidence of witness cooperation

Judicial Watch has obtained the FBI interview reports (FD-302s) on George Papadopoulos. The picture that those 302s paint of Papadopoulos' interviews is strikingly at variance with the picture that the Team Mueller prosecutors--Aaron Zelinsky, Jeannie Rhee, and Andrew Goldstein--paint in their sentencing memo.

The story line is a bit convoluted, perhaps intentionally so. Basically, Team Mueller claims that Papadopoulos "lied" repeatedly because Papadopoulos repeatedly maintained that when he was meeting with Mifsud and a pair of Russian nationals--in March, 2016--he was not yet part of the Trump campaign. Papadopoulos maintained that he became part of the campaign in April, 2016. But it appears that Team Mueller hedges a bit, rather slyly. Here's the actual wording of the sentencing memo:

the defendant met the Professor for the first time on or about March 14, 2016, after the defendant had already learned he would be a foreign policy advisor for the Trump campaign;

"He would be" actually refers to the future. The future may well have been April--in Papadopoulos' mind. Moreover, Team Mueller frankly admits--but after long pages of turgid prose devoted to Papadopoulos' iniquity:

The government cannot definitively know what motivated the defendant to lie to the agents on January 27, 2017. But the record shows that at the time of the interview, the defendant was attempting to secure a job with the Trump Administration and had an incentive to protect the Administration and minimize his own role as a witness.

Again, notice that this is rather cagey language. If you don't actually know why a person makes a statement that appears to be at variance with the facts as you want those facts to be, well, that means you don't really know that the person was lying. Because lying involves motives; it involves intent to deceive. So Team Mueller is backhandedly admitting that they don't really know that Papadopoulos was lying--but they're quite willing to guess, and they're quite willing to make assertions in that regard, as long as they insert clever escape clauses. But the bottom line, ethically, is that if they couldn't show that Papadopoulos intended to deceive them about a matter that was, after all, pretty much public record, then they should never have charged him with lying.

You may ask, What harm did Papadopoulos' false statements do? Team Mueller claims they hindered an effective investigation of Mifsud and prevented the FBI from detaining Mifsud after they interviewed him in Washington, DC, in February, 2017. But the prosecutors never explain in the sentencing memo how that worked. After all, they don't dispute that Papadopoulos told them the whole truth and nothing but the truth when re recounted what Mifsud said to him about the Russians and the Hillary emails. It all seems to come down to the timing. Team Mueller wanted Papadopoulos to say that Mifsud approached him as a member of the Trump campaign, and Papadopoulos kept saying, No, it was before I was actually part of the campaign.

It all comes down to perception, on Papadopoulos' part. And you can imagine the frustration on the part of Team Mueller--so near and yet so far! But when you look at the 302s, the picture you get is of a Papadopoulos who is eager to be truthful and cooperative. Which, from Team Mueller's point of view, may have been the real problem. Team Mueller wasn't actually investigating Mifsud and what he may or may not have known about the Russians. They were simply trying to tie supposed Russian misdeeds to the Trump campaign, and Papadopoulos saying, No, that all happened before I was part of the campaign was no help at all. Papadopoulos confirming what Mifsud said was no use, because it didn't point to the Trump campaign.

Poor Lee Smith! He has lots of questions about all this, but nobody wants to comment! Not the FBI, not DoJ, and definitely not Aaron Zelinsky, who is back in Baltimore after very publicly quitting the Roger Stone prosecution. The only person willing to comment on it all was Devin Nunes:

Former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., who played a central role in uncovering other abuses in the Russia investigation including insertion of false information in an application for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant targeting the Trump campaign, said the new revelations about the Papadopoulos case are deeply troubling.

The declassified 302s "provide our first evidence of the Mueller team lying to the court,” Nunes told Just the News in a podcast set to be aired on Tuesday. "The whole idea seemed nonsensical from the beginning that in the sentencing memorandum they would say that he stalled their investigation into Joseph Mifsud. Now, we know from the 302 actually the opposite is true. The truth is that Papadopoulos offered, told the FBI, that Mifsud was going to be in the United States."

For more details, follow the link.

The Devin Nunes - Dan Bongino Interview

Dan Bongino's latest weekend interview, linked below, was with Rep. Devin Nunes. At nearly an hour long, the interview contains a pretty fair amount of substance. Nunes, I believe, still shies away from certain topics, but has enough to say to make the whole worth listening to. In what follows I'll focus on the issues that interested me most. Not surprisingly to regular readers, that means the origin of the Russia Hoax investigation ("predication") and possible prosecutive theories ("conspiracy"), which were both addressed at some length by Nunes.

The first thing that caught my attention was when Nunes stated that, while the whole ball of the Russia Hoax had started rolling in late 2015 to early 2016, at a certain point the conspirators "really needed the umbrella investigation." That "umbrella investigation," of course, was Crossfire Hurricane, the "enterprise CI investigation" of "four Americans" (Manafort, Flynn, Page, Papadopoulos) that Comey referred to in his Congressional testimony in March, 2017.

In evaluating Nunes' statement, it's important to understand that Nunes is very clear that the FBI began it's investigation before Crossfire Hurricane was opened. In essence, he confirms what I've long maintained, that Crossfire Hurricane was, in fact, an "umbrella" that took under it earlier investigations. Whether those investigations were preliminary or ful investigations made little difference, at least initially, because a "full" was only needed for the purpose of obtaining a FISA--otherwise, the same investigative techniques could be used. I was at pains, back when this was a hot topic, to insist that the FBI had almost certainly followed the rules by insuring that it had open case files before conducting investigative activities--they were always going to cover their behinds administratively.

But, says Nunes, at a certain point--sometime between early May and the end of July when Crossfire Hurricane was actually opened, that framework--separate investigations on each of the Trump campaign associates were no longer enough. Was there some precipitating event that led to this change of perspective? It stands to reason that there was, and I believe that we can tentatively identify that event as the action Admiral Mike Rogers of NSA took to shut down the FBI's unauthorized "about" queries of 702 material. It was at this time that Strzok complained to Lisa Page that their investigation was now restricted to what are known as "consensual" recordings--informants recording conversations with targets. This development meant that the FBI would need to get a standard FISA on an investigative subject, going through the painstaking application process, if they wanted to get a broader look inside the Trump campaign. They could no longer rely on datamining NSA records.

Events Leading to the Russia Hoax Tipping Point

What follows is a blog by commenter Mike Sylwester. While I don't ordinarily do this, I've been pulled in a number of directions recently. Mike has done a lot of research on the Downer-Papadopoulos aspect of the Russia Hoax and I believe his blog here will provide a useful framework for discussion on a topic that has become somewhat controversial.

Obviously, we don't know the whole story yet--that has become apparent in the last few days. Mike's focus on the process helps draw attention to the anomalies in the way Downer's "information" was handled. In any bureaucratic setting, anomalies in process must lead to suspicion.

As you read, you may wish to keep the Carter Page matter in mind, since at the same time that the Papadopoulos matter was being used to open Crossfire Hurricane--as the story goes--Bruce Ohr was conveying Chris Steele's Carter Page narrative to Lisa Page, Andy McCabe, and Peter Strzok.

Here's the distinction I see between the use of the Papadopoulos material and the Carter Page material.

Obviously, any domestic investigation would need to be handled by the FBI. The advantage to using the Papadopoulos material--which seems clearly to be a CIA operation--is that it insulated both the CIA and the FBI by inserting a supposedly independent operation by a "friendly" foreign power: Australia. In that way the CIA and FBI could pretend to be merely conduits of foreign intelligence rather than the primary gatherers.

By contrast, while the Carter Page narrative of "Russian collusion" is superficially attractive, it falls apart as soon as Page's relationship to both the CIA and the FBI is known. Worse, concealing that relationship to maintain the credibility of the narrative can only be done by lying or hiding the ball. This, to me, explains why the FBI and CIA would have preferred to base all on the very lame Papadopoulos narrative. When DoJ turned down the idea of a FISA on Papadopoulos, however, the FBI had to turn to Carter Page.

Mike's blog follows:

And Meanwhile: Durham

Yes, John Durham is out there and he's busy. Thomas Lifson has some fascinating coverage of Durham today: Australian media reporting that US Atty Durham has interviewed Alexander Downer.

Follow the link for the details, but ...

Durham has interviewed Alexander Downer, the Aussie "diplomat", intel operative, and Clinton errand boy. He has also interviewed Erika Thompson, the Aussie intel operative who was involved in the Papadopoulos setup, as well.

Sky News of Australia "interviewed" Downer about all this, and Downer was defensive and decidedly mum:

In an interview with Sky News on Sunday, Mr Downer dodged questions about his role in spurring the Russian collusion investigation. 

Mr Downer said he would not talk about the meeting in London’s Kensington Wine Rooms in 2016 which set off the chain reaction resulting in the investigation. 

“There is now in the United States yet another inquiry into this and (Australian Prime Minister) Scott Morrison has said Australia will fully co-operate with that inquiry so that’s what the government is doing and so the plan is to say nothing during the course of that inquiry,” he said.

Full cooperation--that's what we want.

Two Recent Under The Radar Stories: Comey The Editor? Clinton Foundation In Oz

There have been two lengthy stories recently at TGP that deserve attention--but don't seem to have received much. Although I read both stories I haven't tried to cover them here because the details are somewhat complex, and because I'm hoping to see further reporting on both stories.

Commenter Mike Sylwester linked the most recent story yesterday in a comment. The title tells it all, as far as the conclusion goes: Fired FBI Director Comey Likely Doctored His Memos In Effort to Take Down President Trump and the US Senate May Have the Evidence! The idea is that Comey may have altered some of his famous memos that he wrote after meetings with Trump, in order to heighten the impression of "obstruction." In fact, it is suggested that this move on Comey's part may have been a leadup to the appointment of Mueller as Special Counsel--may have been the true focus of Team Mueller pretty much going back to the original post election FBI operations. The argumentation is detailed and, as I said, complex. However, I found it at least persuasive. It certainly shows how much ground Barr/Durham have to cover.

The second story plays into the assertion that I made not long ago--that it defied probability that Australian PM, Scott Morrison, traveled to Washington to meet with Trump only about Aussie spy and "diplomat" Alexander Downer's meetings with George Papadopoulos. The second story presents another aspect of US connections with Australia that may well have been part of the discussions: Clinton Foundation Bilked $130 Million From Australia – After 2016 Election Directors Fled Country from Headquarters Housed in a Shack on a Dirt Road Outside Melbourne. The reporting at TGP relies on investigation by a retired Australian detective, Michael Smith.

It has long been known that Downer was instrumental in funneling at least $25 million to the Clinton Foundation. Smith's investigation suggests that the total amount reached $130 million--Australian government that was, of course, funded by Australian taxpayers. That's not chump change, and yet no one seems interested in learning what Australia was supposed to receive in return.

From that start, Smith's reporting goes in considerable detail into the connections between Australia and all the major players with whose names we're all familiar: Mifsud, Brennan, Comey, and many more. As I said at the beginning, it's too complex to easily summarize but well worth the read. The takeaway is that there was far more going on between the Australian branch of the Globalist Deep State (Five Eyes) and the American British branches than Downer's meeting with Papadopoulos. The closing of the TGP write up graphically illustrates the suspicious nature of it all, with the emphasis on the Clinton Foundation. The caption in the photo below was obviously added:

Aussies got nothing from the Clintons in return – 

What did Australian taxpayers get in return for these millions of dollars? Our [Australian]  media are not even asking the question. 

Instead it’s left to bloggers like Michael Smith to point out that the Clinton Foundation headquarters in Australia is a suburban shack in outer Melbourne and all the nominated directors have fled the country.

New Developments Re Papadopoulos And Mifsud?

Fox News is reporting tonight--Durham's probe into possible FBI misconduct expanded based on new evidence:

U.S. Attorney John Durham's investigation into the origins of the FBI's 2016 Russia probe has expanded based on new evidence uncovered during a recent trip to Rome with Attorney General Bill Barr, sources told Fox News on Tuesday. 

The sources said Durham was "very interested" to question former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former CIA Director John Brennan, an anti-Trump critic who recently dismissed the idea. 

The two Obama administration officials were at the helm when the unverified and largely discredited Steele dossier, written by British ex-spy Christopher Steele and funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee, was used to justify a secret surveillance warrant against former Trump adviser Carter Page. 

In Italy, Barr reportedly told embassy officials he "needed a conference room to meet high-level Italian security agents where he could be sure no one was listening in." 

A source in the Italian Ministry of Justice told The Daily Beast earlier this month that Barr and Durham were played a taped deposition made by Joseph Mifsud, the professor who allegedly told ex-Trump aide George Papadopoulos that the Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. Mifsud reportedly was explaining to authorities in the deposition why people would want to harm him, and why he needed police protection.

Papadopoulos has suggested he was connected with Mifsud as part of a setup orchestrated by intelligence agencies.

What would this misconduct--specific to the FBI--be, and what connection would it have with Mifsud? This is speculation, but my guess is that what Barr and Durham learned to their satisfaction in Rome was that the FBI knew Papadopoulos had no Russian connection but that the FBI targeted him anyway--essentially to pressure him into providing false or misleading testimony.

Follow the link for the interview with George Papadopoulos.

Separately, Fox is also reporting that

Additionally, documents obtained by Fox News confirmed that Australia proactively offered support for Barr's review, and seemingly contradicted reporting that Trump was pressuring other countries to assist. 

... 

"If the rumors are true that IG Horowitz’s report and findings in Durham’s review will blast the conduct of the FBI’s Russia investigation, it will give Trump a lot of ammo to support his argument that he was unjustly targeted then and is being unjustly targeted now," a House GOP source told Fox News on Tuesday. "It will justify Trump’s warnings about the Deep State acting to hobble his presidency."

All of this is looking like a powerful counterattack to the Dem's absurd "all roads lead to Putin" narrative. As absurd as Hillary's "everyone I don't like is a Russian asset" line of attack.

Papadopoulos On The Big Picture Of The Russia Hoax

In this conversation with George Papadopoulos--which I've transcribed in its entirety (below), with just a few extraneous trims from Laura's questions--Laura Ingraham starts with the news that John Durham returned from his trip to Rome with Bill Barr in possession of Joseph Mifsud's two FBI (or possibly CIA) issued Blackberry phones. Papadopoulos immediately turns to the big picture, rather than remaining with the investigative details regarding the phone, and Laura follows up on that big picture approach.

Papadopoulos describes how, as soon as he joined the Ben Carson campaign in December, 2015, he found himself being targeted by State Department officials. He then notes that when he switched to the Trump campaign, just a few months later, he was targeted by intelligence operatives, including Mifsud, who already knew all about him even though his switch to the Trump campaign was not public knowledge. Obviously, he's telling us that the coordinated targeting of all Republican campaigns by the supposedly non-political branches of the Obama administration (State, DoJ, the FBI and CIA) was well underway--no later than December, 2015, but certainly even earlier.

At that point Papadopoulos begins struggling a bit to articulate his big picture. What he's saying is that we're finally going to realize, as a result of the Barr/Durham investigation, how not only the US intelligence agencies but also foreign governments who bought into the Globalist agenda were totally invested in a Clinton presidency--and were coordinating to make sure that happened. The interests pushing the Globalist agenda included both Socialists (like Renzi in Italy) and conservatives (Cameron/May in the UK, Turnbull in Australia)--just as we see the same agenda being pushed on a bipartisan basis in the US.

It's an interview that nicely balances the big picture with interesting details. Regarding the details, Papadopoulos' account of how he was targeted by agencies of the Executive branch of the Obama regime from his first involvement in Republican campaigns suggests that there was a mole or spy within the Trump campaign (more generally here) who was looking to plant suggestible, manipulable individuals like Papadopoulos inside the Trump campaign. From the big picture perspective, the international scope of the Deep State assault on Trump comes into clear focus as well. The attempt by Mifsud and Downer, the Australian, to steer Papadopoulos (a Mideast wonk) toward Russia reflects the importance of Russia/Ukraine to the Globalist interests behind this effort. Putin's championing of national interests over Globalism is what makes him the Globalist boogeyman--the rest of the Russia Hoax is largely "narrative".

All this is what Bill Barr is endeavoring to "get his arms around" in a prosecutable way. Hopefully Barr will also find a way to get the truth out to the American public in more expeditious ways that will not jeopardize prosecution.

Bill Barr In Rome

From a link I got at GP, which summarizes a NYT story--William Barr and John Durham’s visit to Italy:

The exclusive disclosure made by InsideOver on 28 September has been confirmed: William Barr, Attorney General of the United States, was in Italy for a few days from 25 until 27 September to gather evidence relating to “Spygate”. As George Papadopoulos, former member of the foreign policy advisory panel in Donald Trump’s presidential election campaign in 2016 told us, Barr was in Rome, at Palazzo Margherita – where the US embassy is located – in a particularly feverish few days for the US administration as Nancy Pelosi announced the launch of the impeachment proceedings against the President on account of the Kievgate scandal. 

As the New York Times confirms, William Barr arrived in Italy around 25-26 September and met  Italian government officials on Friday 27 September. According to former Justice Department officials, the justice ministry asked several foreign countries, including Italy, to cooperate and hand over certain documents relating to the 2016 elections. Attorney General Barr’s trip to Italy was also confirmed by the Washington Post: the US Justice Department asked officials of the Conte government to provide whatever support was necessary to United States Attorney John Durham who was appointed to investigate the murky origins of Russiagate. According to the Washington Post, this was not Barr’s first visit to our country. 

According to a report in the Daily Beast, when Barr arrived at the US embassy in Palazzo Margherita in Rome he asked for two things: a conference room to meet high level Italian security agents where he could be sure that nobody could listen in and a chair for United States Attorney John Durham who was appointed by Barr to cast light on Russiagate.

 

That's significant. No chairs for FBI or CIA reps--because they weren't there.

John Solomon On The Status Of The Russia Hoax Investigations

I say "investigations" in the plural, because technically there are several investigations ongoing--all related. John Solomon appeared on Hannity last Friday night (August 16), then on Maria Bartiromo's Sunday morning show (August 18), covering related topics. Taken together, the two interviews give a decent picture of the overall status of the Russia Hoax investigations. That, in turn, will provide an indication of the shape of developments we should expect to see going forward. We'll start with the Hannity interview:

The first part of the interview makes clear that there are, in essence, several investigations and there will therefore be several reports:

The Papadopoulos Transcripts--Why They Matter

Maria Bartiromo had a two part interview today with retired Congressman Trey Gowdy. We've already referred to the second part of that interview in which the two discussed what happened with John Ratcliffe's bid to become the new DNI. In the first part of the interview the topic was George Papadopoulos. Specifically, the topic was the existence of a transcript of a conversations between Papadopoulos and CIA/FBI/MI6 asset Stephan Halper--and why that transcript has not been released publicly. Gowdy, of course, is one of the Congressmen who has seen that transcript, and he assured Bartiromo that there was nothing so highly classified in it that would prevent its public disclosure.

Gowdy, in his remarks, emphasized that there is exculpatory evidence in the transcript and that the FBI hid this exculpatory information from the FISA court.

Bartiromo, for her part, informed Gowdy that she had spoken last night with Papadopoulos and that Papadopoulos had provided her with his recollection and account of his conversation with Halper:

Papadopoulos told Bartiromo that the transcript of his conversation with Halper will prove he didn’t take the bait when Halper brought up [the subject of obtaining] Hillary’s ‘hacked emails’ [from "the Russians"].

Papadopoulos told Stephan Halper that it would be treason to accept help from the Russians, according to Bartiromo. 

“Are you kidding me? That’s treason! People get hanged for stuff like that! I would never do something like that,” Papadopoulos allegedly told Stefan Halper in a September 2016 meeting in London.

Gowdy again emphasized the exculpatory nature of Papadopoulos' statements to Halper. Even though Gowdy was unable to confirm Papadopoulos' account in detail, he essentially confirmed it by not qualifying it in any way, instead exclaiming:

John Solomon's New Bombshell: Durham Revisiting Mifsud

John Solomon is reporting this evening that US Attorney John Durham--Bill Barr's handpicked head of the DoJ's Russian Hoax investigation--has reached out to Joseph Mifsud's lawyer, Stephan Roh:

An investigator told Swiss attorney Stephan Roh that Durham’s team wanted to interview Mifsud, or at the very least review a recorded deposition the professor gave in summer 2018 about his role in the drama involving Donald Trump, Russia and the 2016 election. 

The contact, confirmed by multiple sources and contemporaneous email, sent an unmistakable message: Durham, the U.S. attorney handpicked by Attorney General William Barr to determine whether the FBI committed abuses during the Russia investigation, is taking a second look at one of the noteworthy figures and the conclusions of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s final report.

Solomon is quick to draw the obvious conclusion: This can only mean that Mueller himself, the conduct of his investigation, and the conclusions his Team Mueller drew are all coming under scrutiny.

Here's one example Solomon gives of anomalies in the Mueller inquisition--and I think we're safe in assuming that Solomon's source pointed this out:

Mueller concluded that Mifsud was a person with extensive Russia ties who planted the story about the Clinton emails in Moscow and then lied about his dealings with Papadopoulos when interviewed by the FBI in 2017. Papadopoulos has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Mifsud. 

But unlike others accused of misleading Mueller — including Papadopoulos, former Trump adviser Michael Flynn and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort — Mifsud was not charged with a crime.

Yeah, how does that work? Some mistatements are lies that are prosecuted and others, well ...

Briefly Noted: Lindsey Graham Will Call Papadopoulos To Testify

The Hill is reporting that Lindsey Graham is planning to call George Papadopoulos to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee:

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said he plans to call former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos to testify as part of a “deep dive” into the early stages of the FBI probe into Russia's election interference. 

“The committee will be looking at the counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign. We will call Papadopoulos and we will find out what happened,” Graham said at the start of a hearing Tuesday with FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Graham said that the panel would conduct a “deep dive into 2016 surveillance by the FBI,” reiterating plans he has long had to investigate the origins of the Russia probe. 

... 

Graham said he would wait to jump-start his investigation until after Justice Department inspector general concludes his own inquiry into the FBI’s actions in applying for the Page warrant.

This may actually be a bigger deal than it may at first appear to be. The reason I say that has to do with John Solomon's latest bombshell report. No, I don't mean his stunning report on Andrew Weissmann's shenanigans--Solomon has a new bombshell that I'll be writing up ASAP. Clearly Solomon is being fed leads.

Separately, the linked The Hill article also reports:

Wray has previously testified that he had no evidence personally that the FBI engaged in illegal surveillance during the 2016 campaign.  

Wray was testifying Tuesday as part of a general oversight hearing focused on the FBI. 

Under questioning from Graham, Wray said that Russia has not been deterred by sanctions and other measures and is still engaging in foreign influence campaigns against U.S. elections. 

“The Russians are absolutely intent on trying to interfere with our elections through foreign influence,” Wray said.

I trust I'm not alone in regarding Wray as a complete waste of space.