The Maltese Phantom of Russiagate
Although Mifsud has traveled many times to Russia and has contacts with Russian academics, his closest public ties are to Western governments, politicians, and institutions, including the CIA, FBI and British intelligence services. One of Mifsud’s jobs has been to train diplomats, police officers, and intelligence officers at schools in London and Rome, where he lived and worked over the last dozen years.
If Mifsud truly is a Russian agent – which is key to the collusion narrative – he could prove to be one of the most promiscuous spies in modern history. Western intelligence agencies and European politicians would have to spend the next few decades repairing the damage he did to global security by infiltrating key institutions and personnel. As of yet, however, there is no indication that any intelligence service has begun the embarrassing, but highly important, assessment of how it was penetrated and how it can re-fortify the vulnerabilities that Mifsud may have exposed. There has been no public effort to arrest him. (Notably, he went into hiding in Italy to avoid questioning during the Mueller probe, contradicting early rumors that he was recalled to Russia or liquidated.)
Rumors circulated in the press that the Kremlin-linked professor may have been recalled to Russia or was liquidated.
A new book by former colleagues of Mifsud’s – Stephan Roh, a 50-year-old Swiss-German lawyer, and Thierry Pastor, a 35-year-old French political analyst – reports that he is alive and well. Their account includes a recent interview with him... Roh said Mifsud was afraid when he first went into hiding. “He had been moved to a place far away in Italy. In November and December, it broke him down. He had no internet or access to communications."
Pastor and Roh, who hired Mifsud as a business development consultant in 2015, write that far from being a Russian spy, Mifsud “had only one master: the Western Political, Diplomatic and Intelligence World, his only home, of which he is still deeply dependent.”
There is plenty of open source material that supports their thesis.
Contrary to media reports depicting Mifsud as a shadowy figure – an Oct. 31 2017 article in the New York Times, for example, says Mifsud “presented himself as a professor” although “his academic affiliations are hard to pin down” – he was a respected teacher and employed by legitimate academic institutions. He taught at Link Campus University in Rome (photo at top), whose lecturers and professors include senior Western diplomats and intelligence officials from a number of NATO countries, especially Italy and the United Kingdom.
Mifsud also taught at the University of Stirling in Scotland, and the London Academy of Diplomacy, which trained diplomats and government officials, some of them sponsored by the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the British Council, or by their own governments.
He also taught at the London Center for International Law Practice, where Papadopoulos was also affiliated.
Researchers, including British political analyst Chris Blackburn, have used open sources to show that Mifsud was a well-known figure in Western academic, diplomatic, and intelligence circles. Blackburn, whose research has previously focused on Islamic terrorist groups, has worked with senior leaders within global intelligence agencies. He told RealClearInvestigations that Mifsud’s known contacts suggest he’s not a Russian spy – or he is one of the most successful in history.
Smith is a prominent British diplomat whose biography describes her as an envoy with 25 years of experience and “expert in managing the complexities of global business practices.” Her postings included Beijing and Islamabad.
She worked with Mifsud at three different institutions—the London Academy of Diplomacy, University of Stirling, and Link Campus University in Rome. Blackburn believes that Smith’s working relationship with Mifsud is an important piece of evidence. “She was on the United Kingdom’s Joint Intelligence Committee,” says Blackburn. “It’s a very significant institution in the UK’s intelligence community, answering directly to the prime minister.”
For eight years, until April 2017, Smith was also a member of Britain's security vetting appeals panel, which, according to its website, is “an independent avenue of appeal for Civil Service staff and contractors whose security clearance has been refused or withdrawn.”
“Smith was vetting UK government employees,” says Blackburn. “So how could she have missed that her colleague Joseph Mifsud was actually a Russian spy? She continued to work alongside him. She got her picture taken with him.”
If it’s true the professor was working with Russian intelligence, says Blackburn, “he was in place to recruit anyone he was training, in Rome or London. Effectively, Mifsud would have been a talent spotter for Russian intelligence.”
Moreover, explains Blackburn, if Mifsud proved to be a spy, he would’ve compromised a number of high-level European intelligence and diplomatic officials the professor worked with in London and Rome. They include Gianni Pittella, an Italian senator who was previously a member of the European Parliament, where he headed the Socialists and Democrats alliance, one of the Parliament’s most important left-wing blocs.
“Joseph is my dear friend,” Pittella told the Italian press in November after news of Mifsud’s alleged involvement in the Russiagate scandal spread. Pittella was a visiting lecturer when Mifsud was director of the London Academy of Diplomacy and is on the Link Campus Foundation's board.
Link offers degrees in strategic studies and “diplomatic science.” Blackburn says that among the students who attend Link are police officers from around Europe, especially Italy, Malta, and eastern European countries, as well as a large contingent from Brazil. Link’s president is the former Italian interior minister, Vincenzo Scotti, who is alleged to have told Mifsud to hide.I can't go on. There's too much evidence to expect you to read this all. Just go to the link and read the full article if you are not convinced. Then tell us why the NY Times or the Washington Post or CNN or Nancy Pelosi, etc. or any mainstream media outlet or prominent Democratic politician will not acknowledge that the whole basis for the Mueller investigation was a set up by a western intelligence asset (not a Putin operative)? I guess that would be embarrassing, so they must believe the better bet is to dismiss as a conspiracy theory anyone who points out the holes in their conspiracy theory.
Here's another article, from the mainstream Guardian newspaper, which, while not coming out saying directly that Mifsud is a western intelligence asset, strongly implies as much:
Undeterred by the rickety surroundings, Mifsud quickly found institutions ready to boost his credentials. The University of East Anglia took him on in 2011 and claimed he was a professor, although no one can see how he earned the title. In 2016, he moved to Stirling University, which was delighted that he flew “the University of Stirling flag” at “high-profile” meetings with Putin. You have to have encountered the fierce jealousy with which academics guard their specialisms to realise how unusual it is for two universities to treat Mifsud as an authority on international diplomacy when what expertise he possessed was on early years education.
I asked Stirling and East Anglia what academic qualifications Mifsud had for the posts they granted him, what checks they had run on his academy and what financial arrangements they had made with him. Britain’s universities are as bad at replying to questions in the public interest as they are at defending freedom of speech. Stirling refused to answer. East Anglia said it might get back to me this week.
Tellingly, as soon as the scandal broke, the London Academy of Diplomacy closed its doors. It’s almost as if it were an intelligence asset whose cover had been blown, rather than an academic institution dedicated to an impartial understanding of international affairs. But for a few years, East Anglia and Stirling helped Mifsud appear to be an expert on diplomacy.Check out Mueller's Congressional testimony regarding Mifsud:
JORDAN:
Well I'm reading from your report, Mifsud told Papadopoulos, Papadopoulos tells the diplomat, the diplomat tells the FBI, the FBI opens the investigation July 31st, 2016.
And here we are three years later, July of 2019, the country's been put through this and the central figure who launches it all, lies to us and you guys don't hunt him down and interview him again and you don't charge him with a crime.
JORDAN:Here's more about seriously Mifsud figured in the 2 year Mueller investigation: Insinuendo: Why the Mueller Report Doth Repeat So Much. (Hint: It was coverup of the fact that Trump was framed by western intelligence agencies, much like the 2004 Kay Report documented weapons of mass destruction program related activities covered up the bad intelligence that framed Saddam Hussein.)
Director, the FBI interviewed Joseph Mifsud on February 10th, 2017. In that interview, Mr. Mifsud lied. You point this out on page 193, Volume 1, Mifsud denied, Mifsud also falsely stated. In addition, Mifsud omitted. Three times, he lied to the FBI; yet, you didn't charge him with a crime. Why...
...
MUELLER:
I can't get into internal deliberations with regard to who or who would not be charged.
JORDAN:
You charged a lot of other people for making false statements. Let's remember this -- let's remember this, in 2016 the FBI did something they probably haven't done before, they spied on two American citizens associated with a presidential campaign.
George Papadopoulos and Carter Page. With Carter Page they went to the FISA court, they used the now famous dossier as part of the reason they were able to get the warrant and spy on Carter Page for a better part of a year. With Mr. Papadopoulos, they didn't go to the court, they used human sources, all kinds of -- from about the moment Papadopoulos joins the Trump campaign, you've got all these people all around the world starting to swirl around him, names like Halper, Downer, Mifsud, Thompson, meeting in Rome, London, all kinds of places.
The FBI even sent -- even sent a lady posing as somebody else, went by the name Azmiturk (ph), even dispatched her to London to spy on Mr. Papadopoulos. In one of these meetings, Mr. Papadopoulos is talking to a foreign diplomat and he tells the diplomat Russians have dirt on Clinton. That diplomat then contacts the FBI and the FBI opens an investigation based on that fact. You point this out on page 1 of the report. July 31st, 2016 they open the investigation based on that piece of information.
Diplomat tells Papadopoulos Russians have dirt -- excuse me, Papadopoulos tells the diplomat Russians have dirt on Clinton, diplomat tells the FBI. What I'm wondering is who told Papadopoulos? How'd he find out?
MUELLER:
I can't get into the evidentiary filings.
JORDAN:
Yes, you can because you wrote about it, you gave us the answer. Page 192 of the report, you tell us who told him. Joseph Mifsud, Joseph Mifsud's the guy who told Papadopoulos, the mysterious professor who lives in Rome and London, works at -- teaches in two different universities.
This is the guy who told Papadopoulos he's the guy who starts it all, and when the FBI interviews him, he lies three times and yet you don't charge him with a crime. You charge Rick Gates for false statements, you charge Paul Manafort for false statements, you charge Michael Cohen with false statements, you charge Michael Flynn a three star general with false statements, but the guy who puts the country through this whole saga, starts it all for three years we've lived this now, he lies and you guys don't charge him. And I'm curious as to why.
MUELLER:
Well I can't get into it and it's obvious I think that we can't get into charging decisions.
JORDAN:
When the FBI interviewed him in February -- FBI interviews him in February, when the Special Counsel's Office interviewed Mifsud, did he lie to you guys too?
MUELLER:
Can't get into that.
JORDAN:
Did you interview Mifsud?
MUELLER:
Can't get into that.
JORDAN:
Is Mifsud western intelligence or Russian intelligence?
MUELLER:
Can't get into that.
JORDAN:
A lot of things you can't get into. What's interesting, you can charge 13 Russians no one's ever heard of, no one's ever seen, no one's ever going to hear of them, no one's ever going to see them, you can charge them, you can charge all kinds of people who are around the president with false statements but the guy who launches everything, the guy who puts this whole story in motion, you can't charge him. I think that's amazing.
MUELLER:
I'm not certain I -- I'm not certain I agree with your characterizations.
JORDAN:
Well I'm reading from your report, Mifsud told Papadopoulos, Papadopoulos tells the diplomat, the diplomat tells the FBI, the FBI opens the investigation July 31st, 2016.
And here we are three years later, July of 2019, the country's been put through this and the central figure who launches it all, lies to us and you guys don't hunt him down and interview him again and you don't charge him with a crime.
Ever since the debunking of Trump-Russia dirt paid for by the Democrats and compiled by the opposition firm Fusion GPS, government officials and conspiracists have insisted that the Steele dossier had nothing to do with launching the investigation. The story is that the FBI flew into action after learning that Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos had made an alarming statement to an Australian diplomat in a London bar, telling him about Russian intentions to interfere with the U.S. election.
From the first page of his report, the special counsel is eager to establish the narrative that that Papadopoulos, not Steele, sparked the initial investigation. Mueller writes that in May 2016 “Papadopoulos had suggested to a representative of [a] foreign government that the Trump Campaign had received indications from the Russian government that it could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of information damaging to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.”
But it’s not enough to say it once. Come page 6, Mueller writes, “Papadopoulos suggested to a representative of a foreign government that the Trump Campaign had received indications from the Russian government that it could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of information damaging to candidate Clinton.”
Mueller repeats this claim nearly word for word again on pages 81, 89, and 93.
At least page 192 offers a hint of variation: The FBI “approached Papadopoulos for an interview” because of “his suggestion to a foreign government representative that Russia had indicated that it could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of information damaging to candidate Clinton.”
Such relentless repetition might be dismissed as lazy cut-and-paste writing. But repetition is an ancient and effective tool of rhetoric.Although the Mueller Report did not include any detailed discussion of Mifsud's background and probable allegiance, it was filled with reports from the mainstream media, many of which were based on "intelligence leaks":
Mr. Mueller, rather than purely relying on the evidence provided by witnesses and documents, I think you relied a lot on media. I'd like to know how many times you cited "The Washington Post" in your report.Is it any wonder that many in the intelligence agencies are anxious to impeach Trump? Clearly, they have much to lose.
MUELLER:
I did not have knowledge of that figure, but -- I don't have knowledge of that figure.
LESKO:
I counted about 60 times. How many times did you cite "The New York Times"? I counted...
MUELLER:
Again, I have no idea.
LESKO:
I counted about 75 times. How many times did you cite Fox News?
MUELLER:
As with the other two, I have no idea.
LESKO:
About 25 times. I've got to say it looks like Volume 2 is mostly regurgitated press stories. Honestly, there's almost nothing in Volume 2 that I couldn't already hear or know simply by having a $50 cable news subscription. However, your investigation cost American taxpayers $25 million. Mr. Mueller, you cited media reports nearly 200 times in your report then in a footnote, a small footnote, number 7, page 15 of Volume 2 of your report you wrote. I quote, "this section summarizes and cites various news stories not for the truth of the information contained in the stories but rather to place Candidate Trump's response to those stories in context."
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