582

Both sides are saying the same thing: ‘He is a British intelligence agent sent to frame ‘President Trump’.

It’s not clear how much Trump’s ‘Coffee Boy’ really did cooperate with Mueller in the end. If he didn’t it’s not hard to see why: he appears to remain a very fervent pro Trump partisan and as noted in a previous chapter he has been fomenting a counternarrative that this was all a setup by British intelligence to wrongly accuse the Trump campaign of colluding with Russia.

Of course, he leaves out the part where he took this information to the Greek Defense Minister who later ‘thanked’ Papadopoulos for Trump’s ‘win.’

Or that according to Chicago sports bar patron Jason Wilson, Papadopoulos told him that he actually told Jeff Sessions about the emails in March, 2018-almost a full year from today-March 3, 2019.

He also leaves out the part where this report by ‘the Australian media’ is actually by Sputnik-aka Russia Today (RT).

https://twitter.com/ReaIFakeNews/status/1050790262618828802

Now to be sure, it is true enough that the Russians often seem to know more about what Trump’s been up to than the American media-as also documented in the above link.

“Prominent Russian TV Station Reported Details of Trump’s Reaction to FBI Briefing That Were Not Public.”

“The routine 2016 meeting for then-candidate Trump took place in New York.”

The question that begs these days is what Papadopolous is up to. He’s claiming that the he’s about to clear Trump of Russia collusion-and perhaps prove Clinton guilty of British collusion.

.

Regarding the issue of coordination the issue of wether Papadopoulos has ‘ever met a Russian official in his life’-or not-doesn’t actually answer the question-it’s certainly possible to have not personally met a Russian official and still coordinated with the Russians in their election interference. In any case if Papadopoulos hasn’t met any Russian officials there were certainly many Trump campaign officials who did. But in any case Joseph Mifsud has high level connections to the Russian government which falsifies the glorified Coffee Boy’s denials at the outset.

FN: As we see in Chapter A Papadopoulos and his wife revealed on Ari Melber that they not only both knew Mifsud prior to meeting but that he was central to their meeting itself-Melber, alas, didn’t to appreciate the bombshell he had found.

Sure that’s why Devin Nunes, who as we saw in chapter-find ch Mike-who we now know was way too compromised to ever preside over Russia collusion in the first place, as he was giving out private intelligence briefings to Michael Flynn and the Trump campaign in May, 2016 and had totally dismissed the possibility of Russia collusion months before coming to preside over the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation of this very same Russia collusion-that he’d already made his mind up about-never even called Papadopoulos in to testify before pronouncing ‘no collusion.’

FN: Later after the Coffee Boy finished his time cooperating with Mueller he begun to foment counternarratives-the ‘real collusion’ was the UK and Hillary Clinton. Then, belatedly, Nunes had him over to Congress-by that time the GOP Congress was a lameduck.

End FN

But it is rather amazing that while Papadopoulos is now claiming that Mifusd was an M16 agent, Mifsud’s lawyer said the same thing about Papadopoulos-before Mifsud vanished without a trace.

 

“While Mifsud vanished without a trace-and Papadopoulous’ lies to the FBI in late January, 2017 are responsible for Mifusd’s escape-evidently the Russian professor was actually in DC but Papadopuolous’ lies bought him the time to escape the country-  Mueller was able to detain Stehphen Roh, Mifsud’s lawyer. “

By the way, regarding Papadopoulos, anything he says about Mifsud, lacks credibility and would need to be corroborated independently with reputable sources as the matters of fact that he lied to Mueller about were regarding Mifsud as he himself testified to under oath. 

Papadopoulos acknowledged that his false statements to the FBI were intentional and were aimed at concealing details about his contacts with Mifsud. “I hid many aspects of my relationship with Joseph Mifsud. That was wrong and it was a crime,” the former Trump adviser said.

Now he’s singing a different tune. There has been no shortage of attempts at building a counternarrative of Trump-Russia collusion by GOP operatives and other Trump arch loyalists claiming that the ‘real collusion’ was the Clinton campaign funding part of the Steele dossier, or Stephen Halper, etc. Regarding the illusions of Spygate-that Papadopoulos himself leans on- here’s a primer by Vox. 

But while Papadopoulos is now claiming that Mifsud was a British intel agent who had the intent to entrap him in order to falsely accuse the Trump campaign of Russia collusion, it’s interesting to look at what Stephen Roh, Mifsud’s own attorney said about Papadopoulos while in custody.

He too, has a parallel narrative that absolves Trump and puts the blame on the Clintons, Obama, the Deep State, etc.

“FBI agents working for special counsel Robert Mueller allegedly detained a lawyer with ties to Russia who is closely associated with Joseph Mifsud, the shadowy professor who claimed during the election that Russia had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton.”

The revelation was made in a book co-written by that lawyer, Stephan Roh, and set to be published next month. “The Faking of RUSSIA-GATE: The Papadopoulos Case” is the latest in a stream of books aiming to capitalize on the chaos of this political moment. But it sheds new light on the expansive nature of Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s election interference and possible ties between President Donald Trump’s campaign team and Moscow. It also highlights Mueller’s interest in answering one of the probe’s biggest outstanding questions: whether the campaign knew in advance that Russia planned to interfere in the election.”

The lawyer allegedly questioned by Mueller’s team, Stephan Roh, is a German multimillionaire with ties to Russia. He hired Mifsud as a “business-development consultant” in 2015, and is Mifsud’s “partner and best friend” and “the money behind him,” Papadopoulos’s wife, Simona Mangiante, who worked for Mifsud briefly, told me

The subject of Papadopoulos’ wife, Simona Mangiante, is also very interesting. There has been a good deal of suspicion she’s a Russian spy-even by George’s family. 

This is due to the rather amazing ‘coincidence’ that she and her husband were both associates of Mifsud prior to meeting and allegedly his name never came up in the first meeting. Again, per Malcom Nance’s Nance’s Law: coincidences take a lot of planning. Then there’s where she happened to meet Mifsud-the the European Parliament where she herself admits, there are many Russian spies.

She recently attempted to debunk this suspicion in an ABC interview, but suffice it to say it more raised more questions than put this theory to bed.

Another ‘amazing coincidence’-her partner is the brother of Joseph Schmidt who was on Trump’s foreign policy team-alongside Papadooulos himself-and Schmidt also searched for HRC”s legally deleted emails on the dark web. So in a ‘pure coincidence’ George ends up meeting and marrying a woman who both used to work for Mifsud and have a partner who’s the brother of someone George worked with on the campaign who also sought Clinton’s emails.

FN: Then there’s the Ari Melber bombshell mentioned above that not only was Mifsud Papadopoulos and Simona Mangiante  mutual acquaintance prior to meeting but he was the basis for their meeting.

Back to Stephen Roh:

“Roh intersected with Mifsud at two institutions: the now-defunct London Academy of Diplomacy and Link Campus University, a private institution in Rome that Roh co-owns, and where Mifsud taught briefly. In April 2016, Mifsud and Roh spoke on a panel together at the Kremlin-backed Valdai Club—a think tank that is close to President Vladimir Putin and hosts him every year for a keynote address. The club is described in the book as “one of the most influential Russian think tanks in Moscow, maybe even the most prestigious.”

Now here’s what he says about Papadopoulous-who is currently claiming Mifsud is the British intel agent who set up the Trump campaign:

“It is unclear whether Roh was actually surveilled after being interviewed—a spokesman for the special counsel’s office declined to comment. The book further alleges that Mifsud is not a Russian spy but is actually “deeply embedded in the network of Western Intelligence Services.” Papadopoulos, too, is a “western intelligence operative,” the authors assert, who was “placed” in the Trump campaign by the FBI. In that sense, the book is similar to one written recently by another obscure player detained and questioned by Mueller’s team earlier this year: Ted Malloch, a controversial London-based academic with ties to Trump associates Roger Stone and Nigel Farage. In his book The Plot to Destroy Trump: How the Deep State Fabricated the Russia Dossier to Subvert the President, Malloch argues that the apparent covert intelligence activity connected to the Trump campaign was not Russian, but Western.”

So Roh is using the same counter narrative as Papadopoulous-but he claims Papadopoulos is the British intel agent who tried to set up the Trump campaign.

UPDATE: Ted Malloch also used the same narrative-we now know that Malloch may hav been the point person Jerome Corsi sent to Britain to get the information about the Podesta emails from Assange over the the Embassy.

“Roh and Pastor’s prevailing thesis is that Papadopoulos’s “mission” was to bring Trump into contact with Russian officials. “That’s nuts,” Papadopoulos’s wife Mangiante told me in response to the book’s theory. “From ‘coffee boy’ to spy … George has been upgraded!” she joked, referring to the Trump campaign’s claim that Papadopoulos, a young energy consultant who joined the Trump campaign in March 2016, was so low-level that he was basically a “coffee boy.”

Ok, but she-who seems to be feeding a lot of the conspiracy theories to George-has been fomenting the same theory but changing the cast of characters around.

“Mifsud has virtually disappeared since his name was made public late last year. In their book, Roh and Pastor say that they last spoke to Mifsud by phone on January 13, 2018. Mifsud told them that he had been “set up,” according to the authors, and called Papadopoulos an “agent provocateur.” Mifsud had gone into hiding, he told them, after “the head of the Italian secret services contacted the President of LINK Campus, Vincenzo Scotti,” and recommended that Mifsud “disappear.” Since then, Mifsud “has been requested to hide, not to communicate, and not to speak to the press,” Roh and Pastor write. “He has been ‘put away’ and threatened to stay quiet.”

If he were a British agent this demand that he disappear wouldn’t make any sense.

In any case, there is very little credibility in what Papadopoulos is saying about Mifsud-particularly as he was convicted specifically for deliberately lying about him enabling him to escape. There isn’t any credibility in what Roh is saying about Papadopoulos either, of course. What you have is two Trump Russia co-conspirators who haven’t got their stories even a little straight thereby incriminating both of them.

It’s not clear that Papadopoulous’ game is at this point-it does seem that his wife has a very heavy influence on him and it’s very hard to believe she doesn’t have some heavy agenda or other, she certainly acts that way and it’s hard to believe that her history with Mifsud was ‘just a coincidence’-coincidences take a lot of planning. 

UPDATE: With the benefit of more hindsight it’s becoming clearer that Papadopoulos is still a Trump partisan-which is why he lied to the FBI in the first place. He also now claims he’s running for Congress-is there a big market for traitors among the California electorate?

Is he also trying to get a job with the Trump Russia House or simply get back into GOP circles? Whatever the motivation, it’s not a good look for him.

Indeed, I wonder what Mueller makes of it.

As Papadopoulos will be testifying before the House Judiciary Committee, Stedman has some good questions for them to ask him:

UPDATE 2.0: Of course, now that the House has turned Democrat he’s not interested in testifying anymore-though you certainly would presume the Democrats are going to want to speak with him-Nadler just sent out requests to save relevant documents to 60 witnesses-including Weisselberg and Donald Jr-you would hope the Coffee Boy in on the list-no doubt Schiff will want to hear from him.

UPDATE 3.0: Talk about Did you ever saw a dream walking?

The House Judiciary Committee put out it’s list and the very much glorified Coffee Boy is on the list. 

See the DailyBeast for more.

At least one witness on the list is fully cooperating-Sam Nunberg was just on MSNBC assuring us that he would.

The consensus seems to be that the Democrats don’t want to call this an impeachment inquiry just yet but that it can be seen as being one in all but name.

For Yoni Applebaum to give it an endorsement is particularly impressive as he’s the one who wrote that huge think piece on why it’s time for the Democrats to begin an impeachment inquiry.

“Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the New York Democrat who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, is set to demand documents from more than 60 people related to President Trump and his businesses. As Nadler puts it, this is necessary because Trump has been “directly implicated” in “various crimes,” including some allegedly committed while president.

Yet Nadler is aggressively downplaying the notion that Democrats are moving toward impeachment. He told ABC News that “we don’t have the facts yet,” and so “impeachment is a long way down the road.”

But make no mistake: In taking this step, Nadler, is, in fact, taking a big step toward launching formal impeachment hearings.

Whether Democrats will ultimately go forward with an impeachment inquiry remains unknown. As detailed below, Democrats are imposing a misguided constraint on themselves in this regard. But you can view this step as functionally the first stage in the impeachment process. And it could take on a life of its own that makes it harder for Democrats to resist initiating that inquiry.

The savvy smart money in Washington predicts that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s findings will be a dud — that there won’t be charges for criminal conspiracy with Russia, and that the Justice Department will release limited information about his findings.

That’s the savvy ‘smart’ take though savvy MSM takes are usually not so smart. John Schindler formerly of the NSA says that his intel sources say that Mueller actually does have the goods on Trump-through secret intel. 

It’d be so great if the savvy take is wrong-as usual

Back to Sargent:

“But once again, an enormous amount of very serious misconduct and wrongdoing by Trump and his top aides (and in their case, criminality as well) has already been documented. Whatever Mueller concludes, House Democrats still have an obligation to go forward with their own inquiries — especially if we learn little about Mueller’s findings.”

“Mueller is examining Russian electoral interference and any related crimes he uncovers. By contrast, congressional Democrats will be focused — as per their institutional role — on learning as much as possible about Trump’s misconduct and abuses of power, and on informing the public about them.”

What an impeachment inquiry does is build a case-if there is a case-for impeachment. This is essentially what this Judiciary investigation is going to look at. But too often Trump’s GOP co-conspirators-along with the MSM pundits-boil everything down to the issue of wether Trump can be conclusively shown to have committed a crime. But the ‘High Crimes & Misdemeanors’ of impeachment aren’t limited narrowly to what the current legal code considers a crime.

There’s another related confusion about the difference between impeachment and indictment-that Charles Blow had to debunk this morning.

Welcome home Charles Blow. My thought process is this: if Trump can’t be impeached then the standard we’ve decided on is only Democratic Presidents can be held accountable and impeached-even for relatively minor infractions like lying about sex with an intern. The straightjacket the Dems sometimes seem to be locking themselves in basically rewards the GOP for being so nakedly partisan that they will excuse anything if the ‘President’ is a Republican.

The Democrats would be saying that they themselves refuse to impeach a Republican ‘President.’

Anyway Blow then goes on to make a point that many seem not to get:

An indictment is an indictment of Trump the individual-Individual One. I agree there’s no logically and morally coherent reason that the Presidency should serve as a shield for criminal behavior that would send anyone else to prison-and it’s certainly not in the Constitution. Adam Schiff argued recently that Trump could go straight to prison after office and if that’s where the facts lead then fine and good-I applaud Elizabeth Warren for vowing that if elected President, Trump and his co-conspirators will get no pardon or hard pass-and every Dem candidate should be on the record regarding the same.

But an indictment of Trump’s ‘Presidency’ is actually more important as that’s about the sanctity of our system of government.

FN: When Nadler did endorse impeachment later in 2019 he said it was to vindicate the Constitution. 

Back to Sargent:

Thus, even if Mueller does not conclude that Trump committed criminal obstruction of justice — or does not indict due to regulations protecting sitting presidents — Democrats will develop the fullest possible picture of Trump’s efforts to derail the investigation.

FN: Of course, Mueller did believe that regulations say Trump couldn’t be indicted but strongly hinted that he had obstructed justice and would have been otherwise; meanwhile Cohen is in prison and Trump would be in the cell next to him if not for his ill gotten Office.

Indeed, asked on ABC whether he thought Trump has obstructed justice, Nadler replied: “Yes, I do.” He cited Trump’s firing of James B. Comey as FBI director and Trump’s pressure on Comey to back off his national security adviser. That Nadler is seeking documentation from the Justice Department shows an interest in filling out this story.

Nadler also said Trump’s decision to grant security clearance to son-in-law Jared Kushner over intelligence agency objections constitutes an “abuse of power.” Nadler added that Trump’s reimbursement of hush money payments — which we learned of from former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s testimony — could constitute “sabotage” of a “fair election” and thus “an impeachable offense.”

Yet, after Cohen’s conviction, Nadler sort of took a rather awkward position-that the hush money payments were an impeachable offense but they shouldn’t lead to impeachment. A class of impeachable actions which it’s nevertheless somehow unfair to impeach over?

And Jane Mayer reports for the New Yorker that Trump ordered top economic adviser Gary Cohn to pressure the Justice Department to file a lawsuit to block the AT&T-Time Warner merger, in apparent retaliation against CNN. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), a Judiciary Committee member, already predicts this will be looked into as well.

FN: I don’t know if they ended up investigating this admittedly there is so much on the plate regarding Trump’s misconduct and potentially impeachable offenses.

The GOP often spins Ukraine as a mere fishing expedition-nothing came out of Russia so the Democrats moved on to Ukraine-in truth Ukraine is the sequel; the GOP co-conspirators essentially use the fact that Trump’s committed 211 plausibly impeachable offenses as proof he’s committed none-as if unless Trump is accused of one and only one impeachable offense this proves the Dems are grasping at straws-again GOP projection: Whitewater really was such a fishing expedition.

The point is that whatever the truth about “collusion,” we have already seen an extraordinary litany of Trumpian misconduct and abuses. Whether or not criminality occurred, the public has the right to the fullest possible picture of all those abuses.

Sargent points out that there’s precedent in such abuse of power and obstruction leading to impeachment-there sure is, both Nixon and Clinton-the articles of impeachment against Bill were perjury and obstruction-Ken Starr believed the simple fact of Clinton criticizing himself in public was a crime-yet Starr waffles on wether Trump is similarly guilty-even though, as Nadler points out Trump has called the Mueller investigation a ‘witch hunt’ 1100 times. 

FN: RedState blithely dismisses this as ‘the President exercising his free speech’-the same people didn’t think Clinton had free speech for much milder criticism of Ken Starr.

The GOP co-conspirators have managed to achieve a kind of intellectual coup where now obstruction and perjury are mere ‘process crimes’-though they didn’t think so at Cohen’s hearing.

Sargent:

“The Watergate precedent is instructive. There were many months of congressional hearings into Richard Nixon’s myriad abuses well before a formal impeachment inquiry was launched.”

“Congress brought key players to the public to talk about not only the break-in but all the other abuses of power in the Nixon White House,” historian Julian Zelizer, the co-author of the book “Fault Lines,” told me. In so doing, Zelizer noted, Congress “set that up” as the foundation for the official vote to launch formal impeachment hearings in 1974.

“I think that’s what Nadler is doing right now,” Zelizer said. “I don’t know if he will ultimately trigger the impeachment investigation. But this is what comes first. Congress has to create the political conditions to move forward. Nadler is looking into multiple parts of the story and trying to bring them together.”

Listen carefully to Nadler, and you’ll see he confirmed this — to a point. He said that before moving forward with impeachment, Americans must believe it’s merited — i.e., he’s building a public case. But he also said an unspecified percentage of “opposition party voters” must be persuaded that this isn’t merely an effort to nullify the election.

So has Nadler given the partisan GOP a get out of jail card? Just refuse to turn on Trump no matter what the facts and no impeachment? That’s an outrage and while many of the leadership Dems are blithely saying ‘I’d rather the American people impeach him in 2020’ if they let Trump walk maybe some of us will sit that one out.

FN: Looking back that was a strong statement-when I stated it on Twitter some of my friends and followers were taken aback-and disagreed. But I meant it-thankfully the Dems finally opened the inquiry-though not over Russia but after Ukraine broke. What hasn’t been discussed is that Pelosi and the Dems were under a lot of pressure from the base to impeach which may have at least opened Pelosi up to the idea-then with the clearly impeachable conduct around Ukraine if you’re listening she decided now was the time. Regarding the Russia investigation most of the 81 names on the list above did not testify before the House-many stonewalled them on documents.

Again, while I’m relieved they opened the inquiry I don’t think this should be rushed-they ought to look at all Trump’s impeachable misconduct not just Ukraine. Even politically it might give the a little more chance to pick off some GOP Senators when it gets to their-I believe they shouldn’t send the articles until next Summer. After all if it’s just one case the GOP can-as they have-said ‘why impeach over one phone call?’

When in truth this is about  a pattern of misconduct, of abuse of power, at rigging elections that Ukraine is the latest version of.

End FN

Because what will be the point of voting for Democrats if even they give Republican ‘Presidents’ a pass? Maybe the Dem leadership needs to stop fearing Trump’s base more than its own.

I’m happy to see that Sargent and I are on the same page here:

“Yet this self-imposed constraint, while reasonable, does not reckon with a unique advantage Trump has that Nixon did not — an enormous propaganda apparatus, including Fox News, that will bombard Trump voters with disinformation painting any and all inquiry into Trump as illegitimate. Democrats must decide whether this disinformation apparatus should be granted veto power in the event that they conclude that impeachment hearings are merited on the substance.”

It gets even better as he’s now read Applebaum himself:

‘

In an important essay for the Atlantic, Yoni Appelbaum detailed that the process of impeachment inquiry, as distinct from the final impeachment vote, is about preserving our democracy. It creates a “rule-bound procedure for investigating a president” that includes “considering evidence” and “formulating charges,” an institutional framework for the grave task of weighing what the sum total of a president’s abuses has inflicted on “the political health of the country.”

Whether the current push from Democrats will lead to such a formal inquiry remains to be seen. But in a sense, this process is already underway. And it may take on a momentum that will make such an outcome harder to resist.

At this point the impeachment inquiry is essentially afoot-though the Democrats are still making noises that sound like they’re shackling themselves-Only if Mitch McConnell agrees! 

The MSM for its part seems only interested in this aspect of impeachment-does it present some  terrible political risk for Democrats? As we’ve seen in Chapter A this is a canard. Far more Americans support impeaching Trump today-before any public hearings than every supported impeaching Clinton. Clinton’s numbers were in the 60s and 70s all through the Monica Lewinsky-impeachment furor and the week they formally impeached him a full 81% approved of Bill Clinton-according to Gallup. The GOP impeached him anyway-and where was this steep price they paid? There was none, by 2000 they had unified control of Washington DC which they’d hold for essentially the next six years.

While I agree with Jennifer Rubin on so much these days I disagree with her on impeachment.

Thankfully she later changed her mind. Regarding the polls they now generally a plurality some show a majority desire not just Trump’s impeachment but conviction and removal. Chris Cillizza-of all people gets this right unlike much of the punditry-the idea that 51% want Trump removed is hardly a low number-Nixon didn’t get there to the end.

Do an analysis of her piece later.

Maybe a new chapter: On the MSM’s Indordinate Fear of Impeachment.

All of this may not belong in this chapter on Papadopoulos.

Meanwhile the concern over ‘nullification’ sounds pretty ironic for those of us who don’t believe he was elected legitimately in the first place.

As for Mitch McConnell if he fails to hold Trump accountable despite High Crimes and Misdemeanors then hold him and GOP Senate accountable in 2020 and vote them out in another Watergate like wave-why is it assumed that impeachment proceedings hurts the Democrats rather than the Republicans? Why is it presumed that impeachment wouldn’t actually help the Democrats-or that failure to could hurt them?

 

I’m just asking the basis of these unexamined assumptions-if this book is about anything it’s about that. Nicole Wallace-so often a beacon in the MSM morass on Russian Collusion-Conspiracy pointed out that the Clinton email probe begun with a document request had Doug Thornell, former DNC  Sr Advisoer on who pointed out that as well as Hillary Clinton did in her 11 hour marathon testimony on Benghazi over the long haul the investigation damaged her candidacy. This is what the Dems should do-keep it going.

Indeed regarding impeaching Trump vs. voting him out I’ve often argued that the optimal outcome could be impeach him and vote him out-perhaps while the GOP Senate spends the final 11 days or so-maybe Dems impeach him with 11 days left until the election just like Comey waited until 11 days for his letter-is stuck having to discuss conviction and removal Kamala Harris beats him in a landslide.

That’s if you’re talking about the optimal political outcome.

UPDATE: In rewinding my DVR I see that Thornell did indeed say he thinks the investigation goes on until the election.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/03/04/house-democratic-chairmen-need-keep-pounding-away-these-points/?utm_term=.083650b193b0

That’s what they should do anyway,

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/10/11/democrats_making_a_big_mistake_by_rushing_impeachment__141466.htmlhttps://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/democrats-are-making-a-mistake-by-rushing-impeachment-vote

 

 

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