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I heard Ted Malloch-the ‘Trump ally’ who was detained-referred to as a ‘minor figure’ on some of the cable shows yesterday. Of course, as we are now seeing with Alex van der Zwaan-the lawyer friend of Paul Manafort and Rick Gates-you can never make assumptions regarding who will prove to be a ‘minor witness.’

Zwaan has proven to be a very pivotal figure regarding Manafort and Gates communications with Konstantin Kilimnik.

Similarly, Malloch may well be a very ‘significant figure’ regarding Roger Stone and Wikileaks. And the whole premise of ‘minor figure’ or a marginal figure misses the lesson of Don Segretti-seemingly minor figures can be pivotal indeed. In addition, in espionage, an important tactic is the use of seemingly marginal figures-aka ‘cutouts’ for deniability. Like when Trump apologists dismissed the importance of the Trump Tower Russia meeting in June, 2016 by carping on the fact that it was set up by Rob Goldstone who has something of a flaky and eccentric appearance and persona.

But that’s what makes him a good cutout-just like Papadopoulos’ Russian professor, Joseph Mifsud, was a great cutout; as was Papadopoulos himself. If the reaction on looking at a photograph of someone involved in something seemingly nefarious is ‘Him? No way would the FBS/Trump campaign use a flake like him-he’s a marginal figure!’ then he was a good choice.

As for Malloch, Glenn Simpson  referred to him as a ‘Bannon Stone associate’ and identified him as a ‘significant figure’ last year. 

• The special counsel Robert Mueller has subpoenaed Ted Malloch, a controversial academic with ties to Republican strategist Roger Stone and Brexit leader Nigel Farage, to testify in the Russia probe.
• Malloch said investigators questioned him about his relationship with Stone, his involvement in President Donald Trump’s campaign, and whether he visited the Ecuadorian embassy where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange resides.
• Stone said in an interview that he recalled two meetings with Malloch — one of which took place during the 2016 campaign — and that they never discussed Assange, WikiLeaks, or Russia.
• Fusion GPS cofounder Glenn Simpson described Malloch last year as a “Bannon Stone associate” and said he believed Malloch was a “significant figure” in the Trump-WikiLeaks connection.

For his part, Malloch also minimizes his meetings with Stone:

Malloch said he told agents he had met with Stone three times, knew nothing about WikiLeaks, and never visited the Ecuadorian embassy. He added that he had no Russia contacts.”

While he claims not to know Stone well, Stone wrote the forward for his new book coming out in May:

Malloch recently wrote a book, “The Plot to Destroy Trump: How the Deep State Fabricated the Russian Dossier to Subvert the President,” which is set to be released in May. The book includes a foreword by Stone, as well as blurbs by Farage and Alex Jones, the founder of the far-right conspiracy website InfoWars.

Asked about the nature of his relationship with Malloch, Stone initially said he met Malloch three times but later said he recalled only two meetings with him. Stone’s and Malloch’s first meeting was at a New York restaurant, Strip House, during the 2016 campaign. The two men dined with Jerome Corsi, a far-right political commentator and conspiracy theorist, Stone said.

Corsi-who’s also a person of interest-in the etymology of the Comey letter, but I digress-see Chapter A for more.

Stone said his conversation with Malloch and Corsi at dinner was friendly but not memorable, and that they discussed “Brexit and globalism.” He added that they never discussed WikiLeaks, Assange, or Russia.”

I’m sure Stone would say if they did discuss these things.

Malloch’s description of what the FBI questioned him about, as well as his subsequent phone call to Corsi, indicates agents likely questioned him about the 2016 dinner with Corsi and Stone after detaining him.

Last year, House Intelligence Committee ranking member Adam Schiff asked Fusion GPS cofounder Glenn Simpson whether he had “any information regarding a connection between Trump or those around him and Wikileaks.”

Simpson replied that the firm had been digging into Stone and his relationships, “and essentially the trail led to sort of international far right. And, you know, Brexit happened, and Nigel Farage became someone that we were very interested in, and I still think it’s very interesting.”

“So I have formed my own opinions that went through — that there was a somewhat unacknowledged relationship between the Trump people and the UKIP people and that the path to Wikileaks ran through that,” Simpson said. “And I still think that today.”

Assange and UKIP.

There’s no doubt that Assange has had close ties to UKIP going back to when he was first under house arrest due to the rape allegations. There’s the mysterious meeting he Farage had with Assange in March, 2017.

https://twitter.com/custardgannet/status/839798523411447808?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.france24.com%2Fen%2F20180120-usa-uk-nigel-farage-julian-assange-secret-meetings-congressional-enquiry&tfw_creator=France24_en&tfw_site=FRANCE24

It has since emerged that one meeting may have just been the tip of the iceberg-there were many meetings where Farage handed Assange a USB stick with data on it. 

“Simpson then said that while there had been reports of one visit Farage made to the Ecuadorian embassy, he believed the two men had met more often.”

“I’ve been told and have not confirmed that Nigel Farage had additional trips to the Ecuadoran embassy than the one that’s been in the papers, and that he provided data to Julian Assange,” he said.

Asked what kind of data, he replied: “A thumb drive [USB stick].”

Farage responded to Simpson’s allegations with a single sentence: “This is conspiratorial nonsense.” Last October, he described reports suggesting that he was a “bag man” running messages between Trump and Assange as a “complete lot of baloney”.

While Assange’s leftist defenders like Randy Credico insist that he’s nothing more than a nonpolitical transparency advocate this doesn’t even pass the laugh test when you review his comments and activities over the last 3-4 years. Indeed, just as in DMs he revealed that he had already desired a GOP victory in 2015.

He was also for Brexit. Here he goes on a rant against the EU and it’s alleged ‘arrest abuse’ as a major reason for Brexit. 

Europe arrest abuse is key reason for Brexit’ Assange rages at Catalan leader’s arrest

“JULIAN Assange today compared the EU to Hitler’s Nazis in a series of rambling tweets attacking the arrest of Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont. He bizarrely also claimed the use of the cross-border European Arrest Warrant – the method used to detain Assange – was one of the key reasons Britain voted for Brexit.”

UPDATE: Malloch has stated he will testify and the date will be April 13. 

UPDATE 2.0: His name came up in the email correspondence of Roger Stone-Jerome Corsi in late July, 2016 as a possible person to meet Assange about the emails. (Chapter A).

UPDATE: What we now know after the release of Cors’s draft indictment-he was never indicted-and Stone’s indictment memo-is that when Stone emailed Corsi to find out what else Assange had on July 23, Coris CCed it to Malloch and there’s reason to suspect Malloch was who ultimately got the information about the Podesta emails directly from Assange.