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At initial appearance, it seems Mifsud is a Russian sympathizing professor who has connections to the Kremlin. This would make his relationship with GP and his attempts to connect him with Russians seem more nefarious.
However, there is more than meets the eye.
It turns out that Mifsud’s connections to Russia are rather vague and not as apparent as the NYT article would appear to suggest. However, his ties to the Italian Intel community (and by proxy the CIA) are actually much more obvious yet seem to not be reported on nearly as much.
The Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) – is a non-profit academic and diplomatic think tank established by the presidential decree dated 2 February 2010.[1][2] The founders of the RIAC are the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Ministry of Education and Science, Russian Academy of Science, the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs and Russian news agency Interfax.
The Russian International Affairs Council was founded on orders of then-President Dmitry Medvedev to contribute to Russia's soft power efforts.[3]
Neither can Anna, his 31-year-old Ukrainian fiancé, who says he is the father of her newborn child. And her story, snatched from the pages of a John le Carré novel, offers a glimpse at the human collateral damage of an intelligence operation in which the mysterious Mifsud was allegedly a central figure.
“He said, ‘I have dinner with Lavrov tonight. Lavrov is my friend. Lavrov this, Lavrov that,’” Anna said. “He even show me picture with Lavrov.”
Anna told BuzzFeed News that she first met Mifsud about four years ago at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.
He approached her while she was taking a selfie and, using English, offered to take her picture. They spoke for a bit, and he invited her to dinner, she said.
The two met again in Moscow a few months later — and “then he came to Ukraine,” Anna said, “to celebrate my niece’s birthday.”
Over the next three years, Mifsud visited Ukraine about 10 times, Anna said. “He came to celebrate a New Year, birthdays, my sister’s baby. He knew all my family. Something we celebrate, he would come. We had a good relationship,” she said.
In late October 2015, Mifsud proposed to her. Anna says they were at a restaurant overlooking the Kremlin in Moscow celebrating Anna’s sister’s birthday. The Maltese academic asked Anna to marry him at the restaurant, and gave her a ring.
originally posted by: theantediluvian
a reply to: Grambler
Where to begin.
It just says emails that are dirt on Hillary. It doesn’t say from the DNC server, or from John Podesta’s emails. The Russian is making a claim that everyone had been worrying about for months; that Russia hacked Hillary’s server and had dirt her.
If you were a Russian trying to convince someone you had goods on Hillary, this is exactly what you would say seeing as how the entire world knew Hillary was careless with her server and may have been hacked.
The way Assange hinted at the DNC release in the June 12 interview was that it (the release of DNC emails) would be damaging to Clinton ("harm Hillary Clinton's chances to win the presidency").
When Misfud and Papadopoulos were having their meetings, the Russians were actively collecting emails not from the Clinton email server (which had by then been down for what 2 years?) but from the DNC server. And it was only a few weeks or less between the May conversation between Papadopoulos and Downer and when it was revealed that that the DNC network had been compromised.
You want to believe that it's more plausible that it was a reference to emails from the Clinton email server (which had been taken offline what? 2 years prior?) but a) unlike the DNC hack, there's no actual evidence that the Russians hacked the Clinton email server and b) the known hack was actually taking place while these other events were happening.
(I'll break the responses down across a few posts)
which is garbage there is still no publicly available proof that Russia hacked the DNC
originally posted by: theantediluvian
a reply to: Grambler
Are you honestly saying that if in May, a Trump campaign staffer told you that the Russians had thousands of emails that they were going to use to damage Clinton and that in June, it was revealed that the Russians had hacked the DNC and then in July, a bunch of emails were released to damage the DNC/Clinton, that you would think back and ignore all that and conclude, "he must have been talking about the email server that Fox News pundits claim was most likely hacked!"
Come on! If you were being objective, you would *clearly* see that as *way* more than coincidence.
As far as the attribution to Russia — attribution is a bitch — but all the indications are that it was the Russians. The phishing campaigns had all the hallmarks of the Russians, the targets were many and diverse (and far beyond the DNC, the Clinton campaign, etc) but the common link was Russian interests (including some like Russian journalists who would be of little interest to anyone but Russians). The implants found on the servers are in the same family as those connected to numerous other hacks attributed to the Russians.
Yes, it's largely circumstantial, yes it's *possible* that somebody made it look like the Russians but there's a lot different threads pointing to Russia and nothing exculpatory or seriously pointing to anyone else except Assange claiming that WikiLeaks didn't get the emails from the Russians.
I'm confused...
If Mifsud told Papadopoulos that Russia had thousands of emails that made Hillary look bad, in late April 2016, then that would have been before the DNC hack, wouldn't it?
He has been awarded by the U.S. State Department as a finalist to represent the United States at UNESCO in 2011.
In 2011 Hillary Rodham Clinton became the first sitting Secretary of State to visit UNESCO where she helped launch a partnership promoting education for women and girls.
These new doodles, hacked by the politically-minded Guccifer and published for the first time here on Gawker, appear to be the Bill Clinton doodles that the world has patiently been waiting for.
Presidential doodles are commonly made public, and were even the subject of a book, "Presidential Doodlings," but for years, the Clinton Foundation has refused requests through its press office.
My point on Mifsud is that he has just as strong if not stronger provable connections to Hillarys friends as he does to russia.
I think its hilarious how anyone tied to any russian right out of the gate is insinuated as somehow devastating and shady.
BTW, funny of you to criticize pointing out these connections as some far fetched conspiracy while you liken Olga to the Movie Red Sparrow, imply she is what, some brainwashed or blackmailed russian secret agent?
Federal prosecutors, though, allege that Papadopoulos, the Trump advisor, hoped that Putin’s “niece” would introduce him to the Russian ambassador in London. Papadopoulos was likewise interested in the professor “because, among other reasons, the professor claimed to have substantial connections with Russian government officials, which defendant Papadopoulos thought could increase his importance as a policy advisor to the campaign.”
After he first met the “niece,” Papadopoulos emailed the Trump campaign to report that he had talked with her about arranging “a meeting between us and the Russian leadership to discuss U.S.-Russia ties under President Trump,” according to the complaint.
“Great Work,” a campaign supervisor replied. (The Washington Post identified the man as national campaign co-chairman Sam Clovis, though he wasn’t named in court documents.)
But the criminal information sheet filed along with Papadopoulos’ guilty plea tells a different story. “I have already alerted my personal links to our conversation and your request [for a foreign policy trip to Russia],” Polonskaya allegedly wrote to Papadopoulos.
“As mentioned we are all very excited by the possibility of a good relationship with Mr. Trump. The Russian federation would love to welcome him once his candidature would be officially announced.”
originally posted by: jadedANDcynical
And don't forget Papadapolous' history with HIllary:
He has been awarded by the U.S. State Department as a finalist to represent the United States at UNESCO in 2011.
George Papadapolous
In 2011 Hillary Rodham Clinton became the first sitting Secretary of State to visit UNESCO where she helped launch a partnership promoting education for women and girls.
U.S. State Department
Everyone seems to have forgotten this bit.
originally posted by: underwerks
I guess the part that amazes me the most is that people believe a billionaire businessman with public connections to a foreign government WOULDN’T already be under almost constant surveillance.
What do people think our intel agencies get paid to do? To try and hinge this conspiracy on Papadopalous being the reason for the investigation into team Trump is extremely short sighted and misinformed.
originally posted by: underwerks
I guess the part that amazes me the most is that people believe a billionaire businessman with public connections to a foreign government WOULDN’T already be under almost constant surveillance.
What do people think our intel agencies get paid to do? To try and hinge this conspiracy on Papadopalous being the reason for the investigation into team Trump is extremely short sighted and misinformed.