Active Measures and Dirty Secrets: the Trump Advisor, the Professor, and Hillary’s Stolen Emails
This article describes the background of Trump Foreign Policy Advisor George Papadopoulos and how he learned from a mysterious Maltese Professor with links to the Kremlin that the Russians had stolen Hillary Clinton’s emails and wanted to use them to help the Trump Campaign.
It is part two of the series “Mysterious Misfits: the 2016 Trump Foreign Policy Team and the Russian Election Interference Campaign.”
While it is not necessary to read previous entries, it is recommended.
The first article covers the establishment of the 2016 Trump Campaign Foreign Policy team and an effort to find Hillary’s “missing emails.”
This article is an excerpt from my book, While We Slept: Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, and the Corruption of American Democracy, available here.
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George Papadopoulos and the Professor: A Trump Campaign Advisor Learns Of Russian Dirt
The son of Greek immigrants to the United States, George Demetrios Papadopoulos was born in Chicago on August 17th, 1987.
In the Summer of 2015, the soon-to-turn 28-year old foreign policy neophyte was looking for a position on a Republican presidential campaign. In mid-July, he reached out to then Trump Campaign Chairman Corey Lewandowski via LinkedIn to inquire as to whether there were any positions available.
Lewandowski put Papadopoulos in touch with the campaign’s National Political Director, Michael Glassner, who informed Papadopoulos that the campaign wasn’t hiring foreign policy advisors at that time.
Undeterred, in late 2015 Papadopoulos applied for and received a position on the Ben Carson campaign. At the time, Carson’s campaign manager Barry Bennet was in a mad scramble to put together a foreign policy team in the aftermath of an ISIS-linked terrorist attack in Paris that had killed over one hundred people.
“All of the foreign policy establishment, the A-listers were working for Jeb [Bush] or Marco [Rubio],” Bennet later said. “So here’s this 28-year old kid who is not terribly sophisticated, but he solved my problem of needing to put a bunch of names on a list. I’m sure he wrote some things for us, but I don’t know that we used any of it.”
Papadapoulos at Hudson: An Israeli Connection?
Papadopoulos graduated from DePaul University in 2009.
Between 2011–2015, he worked as an unpaid intern at the Hudson Institute, a Washington, DC-based conservative think tank. His work at Hudson primarily dealt with energy matters related to Israel, Cyprus and Greece.
In 2010, Noble Energy, a Houston-based oil-and gas company working in partnership with Delek Group, an Israeli energy and infrastructure conglomerate, announced that it would begin drilling in the enormous Leviathan gas field located in Mediterranean waters off the coast of Israel.
Papadopoulos’ work at Hudson appears to have mainly consisted of writing about and promoting the idea that Israel should exploit the field and sell the natural gas to Europe in partnership with Greece and Cyprus, while avoiding any dealings with Turkey.
During its investigation of the Trump campaign, the Special Counsel’s Office appear to have considered charging Papadapoulos with being an illegal, unregistered agent for the state of Israel. No charges were ever made, nor have these suspicions been described in any detail, much less substantiated.
The neoconservative Hudson Institute has long standing ties to Israel. In 2016, it awarded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with its annual Hudson Institute Award.
In addition to its connections with Netanyahu, Hudson also is closely linked with the energy firms seeking to exploit the Leviathan gas field. In 2013, Hudson awarded its first ever Global Leadership Award to Noble Energy CEO Charles D. Davidson, who was also a Hudson donor.
Yet another donor and member of the Hudson Board of Trustees, Jeffrey Berenson, also sits on the board of Noble. The same can be said of Richard Nixon’s son-in-law Edward Cox, who also sits on both boards.
While at Hudson, Papadopoulos used his connections within the Greek American community for networking purposes. In this way, he met the publisher and political lobbyist Aristide Caratzas. Caratzas reportedly donated Hudson $100,000 after speaking with Papadopoulos about his ideas regarding Israeli, Greek and Cypriot energy relations.
In 2014, Caratzas home in Athens was raided by the Greek government, breaking the news that he was being investigated by the Ministry of Justice for “subversion on behalf of a foreign power.”
Caratzas was allegedly an associate of another Greek American under investigation, Alex Rondos. According to the Greek press, Caratzas “worked with Rondos for the Israel-Cyprus-Greece axis. He is considered the man of America and Israel.”
Under the auspices of Hudson, Papadopoulos and a colleague of his at the Institute, Seth Cropsey, co-authored a six-page document that was translated into Hebrew and sent to the Israeli Energy Ministry. The paper advocated for increased offshore gas drilling and for the concessions process to be industry-friendly.
In November of 2015, roughly contemporaneous with his employment on the Carson campaign, Papadopoulos authored an editorial for the Israeli publication Haaretz that argued that strategic imperatives should override any antitrust concerns Israeli regulators might have over awarding Noble Energy and Delek Group drilling concessions.
This followed on the heels of an editorial he wrote for the Israeli right-wing publication Arutz Sheva, in which Papadopoulos argued that Israeli natural gas should be routed through Cyprus, as opposed to Turkey.
According to Newsweek, Papadopoulos was managed at Hudson by a Senior Fellow at the institute named Richard Weitz. Weitz sits on the board of Wikistrat, an Israeli geopolitical analysis firm known to employ former members of Israeli intelligence and that was investigated by the Special Counsel’s Office for its outreach to the Trump campaign.
During his time at Hudson, Papadopoulos became acquainted with Eli Groner, who between 2011 and 2015 was the Economic Attache to the United States at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC. Groner subsequently became a top aide to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Papadopoulos later claimed that for four years he had been on a first name basis with Netanyahu.
While that claim remains unverified, we do know that Papadopoulos traveled to Israel regularly, including in November of 2015, when he spoke at the Israel Energy & Business convention just a few months before joining the Trump campaign.
Papadopoulos Joins the Trump Campaign
Papadopoulos’ job on the Carson campaign ended in February of 2016.
Trying his luck again with the Trump campaign, on March 4th he sent yet another LinkedIn message to Lewandowski and an email to Michael Glassner. This time meeting with more success, Papadopoulos was eventually routed to Sam Clovis, who had been placed in charge of putting together a team of foreign policy advisors in the face of withering attacks from the Republican foreign policy establishment and the media.
Clovis was a former F-16 fighter pilot turned Iowa-based Academic and conservative talk radio host who had emerged as a supporter of Trump. Like others on the Trump campaign, his past was not without controversy. Though it has since been taken down, Clovis once ran a blog where he referred to progressives as “race traders and ‘race traitors,’” and variously described then-President Obama as a “communist” and “dictator.”
He joined the campaign in August of 2015 and had traveled and interacted extensively with Trump.
Clovis interviewed Papadopoulos on March 6th, 2016. Over the course of their conversation, Clovis explained that an improved U.S. relationship with Russia was a principal foreign policy focus for the Trump campaign.
During the investigations that followed Trump’s election, Clovis dissembled over his emphasizing of the importance of Russia to the Trump campaign in his testimony to the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee, which sent the Department of Justice a criminal referral accusing him of lying under oath.
Clearly in a rush to put the team together, Clovis recruited Papadopoulos for the unpaid position over the phone. Later that day, Clovis emailed Trump family members and top campaign officials Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump, Corey Lewandowsi, Michael Glassner and Stephen Miller, writing “I have already had lengthy discussions with Walid [Ph]ares and George Papadapoulos. Both are on board.”
Papadopoulos and the Professor: Joseph Mifsud and a Connection to Russia
While Papadopoulos knew that he was now a Trump foreign policy advisor, the wider world would have to wait fifteen more days until Trump himself made the announcement to The Washington Post’s editorial board on March 21st before it learned the news.
In addition to sending feelers to the Trump campaign, Papadopoulos simultaneously reached out to an obscure organization in London about a job. On March 4th, the same day he messaged Lewandowski, Papadopoulos sought another position at the London Centre of International Law Practice (LCILP) by emailing Nagi Khalid Idris, a British citizen of Sudanese origin who owned the LCILP’s parent company EN Education.
The LCILP described itself as a “unique institution… comprising high-level professional international law practitioners, dedicated to the advancement of global legal knowledge and the practice of international law.”
After being hired, Papadopoulos immediately moved to London and took up a job at the LCILP. Adding to his credibility, Papadopoulos could now introduce himself as a foreign policy advisor to candidate for president Donald J. Trump.
Shortly after arriving in London, Papadopoulos accompanied Idris on a five day work-related trip to Rome. On March 14th, Idris, Papadopulous and several other LCILP members visited Link Campus University, where Idris served as a visiting professor.
A for-profit subsidiary of the University of Malta headed by former Italian Minister of the Interior Vincenzo Scotti, Link Campus University was reputed for its close ties to the Italian intelligence services.
During the visit, Idris introduced Papadopoulos to a Maltese Professor who worked at Link named Joseph Mifsud. While Mifsud initially appeared uninterested in Papadopoulos, his tune changed dramatically when he learned that the 28-year old was working on the Trump campaign.
Suddenly displaying great interest in Papadopoulos, Mifsud described himself as a former Maltese diplomat who enjoyed extensive access to European leaders. In particular, he emphasized that he had “substantial connections” with the Russian government.
Papadopoulos, recalling Clovis’ emphasis on Russia, came to believe that Mifsud could help him increase his importance and status in the Trump campaign.
Joseph Mifsud’s Numerous Links to Russia
Joseph Mifsud’s strange and mysterious background and various links to Russia would subsequently become fodder for a furious scandal that would rage from Washington, DC to Moscow.
During the 1990s, he worked at both the Maltese Education Department and the University of Malta. By 2000, Mifsud served as the general manager of the University of Malta’s European Unit, which managed grants and foreign exchange programs.
When the university brought in new management in 2006, they immediately took notice of apparent financial improprieties linked to Mifsud’s management. After bringing in an auditor from Pricewaterhousecooper, Mifsud vanished, failing to reply to queries sent by university and eventually resurfacing to inform them of his resignation.
“I remember him as a snake-oil salesman,” Manuel Delia, a Maltese government official who was familiar with Mifsud while he administered the foreign exchange program, later told The New York Times.
Joseph Grech, a Maltese national who worked for Mifsud during this time, described him as a compulsive traveler and networker. He further used the word “hawwadi” to describe Mifsud, a Maltese term for “intriguer.”
Despite his boasts to Papadopoulos, he never actually worked as an official diplomat for the country of Malta. From October 2006 to August 2007, Mifsud acted as the Head of the Private Secretariat for Malta’s Foreign Affairs Minister Michael Frendo.
Following this, Mifsud returned to academia and again seems to have become involved in financial malfeasance. In 2008, he became the head of the Slovenia-based Euro-Mediterranean University (EMUNI). Despite glitzy promotional materials that advertised a comprehensive cultural and educational experience, EMUNI had no full time students and offered little else besides summer courses.
After four years, in 2012, a new Slovenian government investigated the university and issued a scathing report rebuking Mifsud’s leadership. Once again, Mifsud vanished rather than accept the consequences. He was later fined $57,000 by an Italian court for inflating his salary, in proceedings that he also failed to show up for.
Despite these sordid affairs, Mifsud continually seems to have found ways to keep himself in the vicinity of the corridors of power.
Between 2009 and 2012, he served as the president of the strategic orientation council of the Institut Euro-Méditerranéen en Science du Risque (Euro-Mediterranean Institute in Science of Risk), part of a larger intergovernmental organization that was the pet project of then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Photographs exist showing Mifsud attending meetings at the Elysée Palace in Paris.
After yet another scandal booted him from EMUNI, Mifsud resurfaced in 2012 when was hired to direct an obscure for-profit graduate school for embassy officials living in the UK called the London Academy of Diplomacy.
The Academy originally had its courses validated by the University of East Anglia, but in 2014 entered into a partnership with the University of Stirling in Scotland, which listed Mifsud as a Professorial Teaching Fellow.
It was at the Academy that Mifsud appears to have begun cultivating contacts within Russia in earnest.
In April of 2014, he attended a conference in Moscow called the Global University Summit. Upon his return to the UK, Mifsud was invited to meet personally with the Russian Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Aleksandr Yakovenko, at his private residence.
Two years earlier, Ambassador Yakovenko hosted a launch party for the Conservative Friends of Russia, a British organization consisting of Tory peers and Members of Parliament dedicated to fostering a better relationship between Russia and the UK.
Yakovenko used the occasion to wine and dine over 250 guests with barbecue, vodka and champagne. The evening ended with a raffle, the prize of which was a copy of a biography of Vladimir Putin.
One of the Russian diplomats who regularly liaised with the Conservative Friends of Russia, Sergey Nalobin, was later revealed to be the son of a high ranking spy. Nikolai Nalobin, Sergey’s father, was reportedly the immediate superior to the assassinated FSB-whistleblower Alexander Litvenenko.
Emails leaked to the press revealed that Sergey had received direct orders from Moscow to deepen the relationship between the British Tories and United Russia, Putin’s political party.
He ultimately left the UK under a cloud of suspicion, one week after a UK inquiry had concluded that Putin had likely personally ordered the assassination of Litvenenko by means of radioactive polonium.
Upon his return to Moscow, Nalobin settled in an apartment block known as “FSB House,” because so many of its residents had worked for the Russian intelligence services.
According to an investigation conducted by the British Mail on Sunday, Yakovenko was expelled from the United States in the 1980s during a purge of Russian intelligence assets by the Reagan administration in retaliation for the arrest of Nicholas Daniloff, an American journalist in Moscow.
American officials believed Daniloff’s arrest was approved by the Kremlin in retaliation for the 1986 arrest of Gennadi Zakharov, an alleged Soviet intelligence officer and member of the Soviet delegation the UN who had been arrested three days earlier by the FBI.
Yakovenko, then 27, worked alongside Zakharov at the Soviet Union’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations and was among the first of the eventually 100 members of the Soviet UN delegation to be kicked out of the United States, in an action that Reagan officials said would have a “crippling effect on the KGB and GRU in New York…”
Little over a year after Yakovenko met with Mifsud, in September of 2015, he ate lunch with two of the most influential figures in the Vote Leave movement that ultimately successfully campaigned for Brexit, Arron Banks and Andy Wigmore.
The man who facilitated the lunch was an SVR Agent named Alexander Udod, who had met Banks and Wigmore at an annual meeting for the far-right, British Nationalist UK Independence Party (UKIP), and was eventually expelled from the UK following the poisoning of former-GRU officer and defector Sergei Skirpal.
Yakovenko is also a member of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society, which connects influential Russians with high-level members of the British aristocratic establishment via opulent dinners and has been linked to advancing the causes of the Kremlin and Russian intelligence. Its director as of 2019, was Sergei Stepashin, a spy chief under Boris Yeltsin.
Returning to 2014, Mifsud brought on a 24-year-old Russian intern named Natalia Kutepova-Jamrom to work for him at the London Academy of Diplomacy. The multi-lingual Ms. Kutepova-Jamrom, who had previously worked as a legislative aide in the Russian government, would prove instrumental to Mifsud.
She introduced him to a variety of senior Russian government officials, diplomats and scholars. Remarkably, she even managed to secure him a speaking slot at the prestigious Valdai Discussion Club.
Sometimes referred to as the Russian equivalent of Davos, the Moscow-based, Russian state funded think tank holds an annual meeting that brings together Western and Russian scholars and academics and often features a speech by, or interview of, Vladimir Putin himself.
Mifsud was present when Putin addressed the 2014 Valdai Discussion Club, delivering a blistering speech that accused the United States of imposing a “unilateral diktat” on the rest of the world.
Following the meeting, Mifsud informed a shocked Kutepova-Jamrom that he had used her introductions to facilitate meetings with even higher-level officials, including, Kutepova-Jamrom later told The Washington Post, Vladimir Putin himself. Mifsud told his intern that he had met the Russian President during “a short private meeting.”
Nor was Kutepova-Jamrom the only person Mifsud spoke to about his high-level Russia contacts. According to a Ukrainian woman with whom he was romantically involved (and later impregnated and abandoned, thus inspiring her outreach to the press), Mifsud claimed to have dined with Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, who he described as a friend. Mifsud’s Ukrainian lover provided BuzzFeed News with private messages between them to verify her identity, on the condition that she not be named in the article.
After speaking at Valdai, Mifsud published three articles on the Discussion Groups website which generally praised Putin and kept to the Kremlin line. In March of 2015, he lauded Putin’s controversial intervention in Syria.
That same year, Mifsud served as an observer for the elections held in Kazakhstan, then-ruled over by the corrupt ally of Putin Nursultan Nazarbayev. Despite the fact that the election was vehemently criticized by independent election watchdogs, Mifsud adopted the Russian line that they had been free and fair. He told Kazakh media that the election had been “consistent with international norms.”
In January of 2016, shortly before he met George Papadopoulos in Rome, Mifsud invited Alexey Klishin, a former Russian parliamentarian and department head and professor in the international law division of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, which is operated by Russia’s Foreign Ministry, to speak at the London Academy of Diplomacy.
Klishin maintains his own law firm and is known to have performed legal work for the Kremlin.
According to Klishin & Partners website, the firm has “experience in the advocacy of the government institutions of the Russian Federation. For example, four-year cooperation between Klishin & Partners, the RF Ministry of Finance and the RF State Depository for Precious Metals resulted in the return of more than $40 million worth of valuables and funds of Golden ADA, Inc. to Russia.”
According to the Special Counsel’s Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election, Mifsud maintained contacts with an unnamed former member of the Internet Research Agency, the organization responsible for executing the social media propaganda and disinformation campaign during the 2016 election.
The Special Counsel’s Office uncovered evidence that in January and February of 2016 Mifsud and the former IRA employee, whose name is redacted in the report in order to preserve investigative techniques and methods, discussed possibly meeting in Russia.
Though the heavy redactions make the various connections hard to trace, the individual appears to have had some connection to Facebook accounts operated by the Russian military and were used to promote DCLeaks, the cutout used by the Russians to distribute the DNC’s stolen emails before they were provided to Wikileaks.
Mifsud’s relationship with Link Campus University appears to have began in 2000, when it was still affiliated with the University of Malta. He reportedly began visiting the university and attending lectures and seminars intermittently.
Over the course of time, Mifsud’s relationship with the institute deepened and he played an active role in recommending potential investors for the university and developing partnerships with other schools.
When he met with George Papadapoulos in March of 2016, Mifsud was in the midst of organizing an educational partnership between Link and Moscow State University, which eventually extended to include six other Russian universities.
Papadopoulos, Mifsud, and Olga Polonskaya (AKA “Putin’s Niece”)
After meeting Mifsud in Rome and learning of his potential high-level contacts in the Russian government, Papadopoulos returned to London.
He next heard from him on March 22nd, the day after Trump had publicly announced that Papadopoulos was officially a campaign foreign policy advisor. Mifsud first sent Papadopoulos a text, providing him with his phone number, and then followed up with an email, writing, “it’s very important for us to meet in London. I have to introduce you to somebody very important.”
Two days later, Papadopoulos met with Mifsud at the Holborn Hotel in London. Accompanying Mifsud was a beautiful young Russian woman named Olga Polonskaya, whom he introduced as a student of his with close connections to Vladimir Putin.
Papadopoulos later recalled that Nagi Idris, the head of the LCILP who had introduced him to Mifsud in Rome, had told him that Polonskaya was Putin’s niece.
While Papadopoulos appears to have initially believed this claim, Vladimir Putin does not have a niece.
Papadopoulos noted that Polonskaya had been escorted to the meeting by an unidentified man who didn’t join them.
According to Papadopoulos, the three discussed U.S.-Russian trade relations. Polonskaya, who spoke poor English during their initial interaction, explained that she could connect Papadopoulos with her high-level contacts in the Russian government and that she was personal friends with the Russian ambassador in London.
He left the meeting believing that he had established an important contact to the Russian government that could serve to raise his profile on the Trump campaign. Later that day, he conducted internet searches on the following terms: russian president, russian president niece olga, joseph mifsud, russian ambassador uk, olga putin, among others.
“I just finished a very productive lunch with a good friend of mine, Joseph Mifsud, the director of the London Academy of Diplomacy,” Papadopoulos wrote in an email titled “Meeting with Russian Leadership — including Putin,” to the members of the Trump foreign policy team. “[Mifsud] introduced me to both Putin’s niece and the Russian ambassador in London — who also acts as the Deputy Foreign Minister.”
Papadopoulos lied about meeting the Russian ambassador, though he had left the meeting believing that Polonskaya could facilitate an introduction. “The topic of the lunch was to arrange a meeting between us and the Russian leadership to discuss U.S.-Russia ties under President Trump,” Papadopoulos continued. “They are keen to host us in a “neutral” city, or directly in Moscow. They said the leadership, including Putin, is ready to meet with us and Mr. Trump should there be interest. Waiting for everyone’s thoughts on moving forward with this very important issue.”
“This is most informative,” Sam Clovis replied. He then exhibited a concern for NATO allies that candidate Trump had thus far failed to express on the campaign trail. “Let me work it through the campaign. No commitments until we see how this plays out. My thought is that we probably should not go forward with any meetings with the Russians until we have had occasion to sit with our NATO allies, especially France, Germany and Great Britain. We need to reassure our allies that we are not going to advance anything with Russia until we have everyone on the same page.”
Following their meeting at the Holborn, Polonskaya began communicating with Papadopoulos via email.
“Then all of a sudden,” Papadapoulos later testified, “I’m talking to who I think is the same person, but she’s writing in more fluent English. And now she goes from a seemingly obscure girl who… I thought might have been… Putin’s niece, to now the interlocutor with Mifsud to the Russian government for me.”
What Papadopoulos didn’t know was that Mifsud himself had drafted Polonskaya’s initial email outreach to him following their meeting. In the email chain between Mifsud and Polonskaya, he refers to her as “Baby,” which indicates they may have enjoyed something beyond a student-teacher relationship.
The Senate Intelligence Committee later described Mifsud as using Polonskaya as a “proxy for his activities,” which they further described as being consistent with intelligence tradecraft.
Later press reports revealed that Polonskaya’s maiden name was Olga Vinogradova.
“It’s totally ridiculous,” Sergei Vinogradova, Olga’s brother told The New York Times after the news of his sister’s interactions with Mifsud and Papadopoulos went public, “She’s not interested in politics. She can barely tell the difference between Lenin and Stalin.”
In an interview with the Italian publication la Republicca after the election, Mifsud described Polonskaya and hinted that Papadopoulos’ interest in her was more than professional, before falsely claiming that Putin had never come up during their conversation.
“She’s just a student,” Mifsud told la Republicca, “a very good looking one. As many other students, I introduced her at the London Center: Papadopoulos was in, and I learned about his interest in her, very different from an academic one. He offered her to go with him to America. Putin wasn’t involved, totally an invention.”
Papadopoulos Meets with Trump, Brings Up a Meeting With Putin
A week later on March 31st, Papadopoulos was in Washington, DC to attend the first in-person meeting of Trump’s foreign policy advisors chaired by the prominent early Trump supporter, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions.
The meeting, which took place at the Trump International Hotel, was attended by the candidate himself. It was the first and last known time that Papadopoulos ever met Donald Trump.
After introducing himself to Trump, Sessions and the gathered advisors, Papadopoulos explained that he had learned through contacts in London that Putin wanted to meet with Trump, and that these same contacts could help facilitate a meeting.
While others present at the meeting either claimed not to recall the interaction or remembered it differently, Papadopoulos interpreted Trump and Sessions’ reactions as being positive to the idea. He left determined to pursue a meeting with Putin.
J.D. Gordon, the Trump campaign’s Director of National Security, who was present and claimed to have a clear memory of the meeting, described Trump as being interested and receptive to the idea of meeting Putin.
Papadopoulos Pursues a Trump-Putin Meeting
In the days following the meeting, Papadopoulos discussed Russia with several of his fellow advisers.
“Let’s think about how to engage your Arab and Mideast contacts in London and DC,” Walid Phares wrote to Papadopoulos in an April 5th email.
“And of course the Russians,” Papadapoulos, who was in Tel Aviv at the time, replied, “as I mentioned during our meeting.”
While in Israel, he was interviewed by The Jerusalem Post, explaining that candidate Trump would “overtly seek” to serious engagement with Russia on common concerns and further saw Vladimir Putin as a responsible actor and potential partner, someone who he could “make deals” with.
Five days later, on April 10th, Papadopoulos emailed a fellow foreign policy advisor Carter Page, to see if he was available for a call “to discuss the outreach to Russia and the Caucasus.”
Papadopoulos pointed out that they “both have experience dealing in that part of the world, so also wanted to look into any synergies.”
When Papadopoulos and Page ultimately connected over Skype, Papadopoulos recalled Page telling him to stop showing off, which he believed was related to his attempts to arrange a meeting between Trump and Putin.
The same day Papadopoulos reached out to Page, he also emailed Polonskaya. Eleven days earlier, she had tried to text him with a message about his “wish to engage with the Russian Federation.”
For unknown reasons, perhaps because Papadopoulos was in Israel at the time, the message didn’t go through. Mifsud, who was also part of drafting the message, subsequently informed Papadopoulos that Polonskaya was trying to get in touch with him.
“This is George Papadopoulos, Donald Trump’s advisor,” he wrote in an email to Polonskaya. “We met with Joseph in London. The reason for my message is because he sent an email that you tried contacting me. I never received your sms. I was in Israel for business and now I am back in London. Are you still in London? If you are it would be a pleasure to meet again. If not, we should have a call and discuss some things.”
“I am now back in St. Petersburg,” Polonskaya replied the next day. “I thank you for our meeting. I would be very pleased to support your initiatives between our two countries and of course I would be very pleased to meet you again.”
“I think a good step would be for me to meet with the Russian ambassador in London sometime this month,” Papadopoulos replied that day. “I would like to discuss with him, or anyone else you recommend, about a potential foreign policy trip to Russia.”
He added a link to The Jerusalem Post piece containing his interview and Trump’s praise of Putin to the email.
“This is already been [sic] agreed,” Mifsud, who was copied to the email chain, replied to them both. “I am flying to Moscow on the 18th for a Valdai meeting, plus other meetings at the Duma. We will talk tomorrow.”
“Excellent,” Papadopoulos replied. “See you tomorrow.”
Mifsud Connects Papadopoulos with Nawaf Obaid and the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC)
The next day, April 12th, according to his personal calendar and email communications, Papadopoulos had a 9:30am breakfast with Mifsud at the Andaz Hotel in london.
At 9:44am, Mifsud sent an email with the subject “Libya CONFIDENTIAL,” connecting Papadopoulos with a Saudi-connection of his named Nawaf Obaid. Obaid was the CEO of the Essam and Delal Obaid Foundation (EDOF), and for years had worked for Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, the head of the Saudi intelligence agency from 1979 to 2001.
Nawaf’s EDOF would later partner with Link Campus University in establishing the Centre for War and Peace Studies, with Joseph Mifsud serving as its Founding Director.
According to Papadopoulos’ calendar, he set up a meeting with Obaid to take place two days later at the Four Seasons in London.
On the same day Papadopoulos met Mifsud for breakfast and arranged the meeting with Obaid, Polonskaya wrote to him saying that she had “already alerted my personal links to our conversation and your request. The Embassy in London is very much aware of this. 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 [sic] would be officially announced.”
On April 18th, the day he traveled to Moscow, Mifsud connected Papadopoulos with Ivan Timofeev, the Director of Programs at the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC).
RIAC was established in 2010 by then-President Dmitry Medvedev as a project involving multiple Russian government agencies. Its President, Igor Ivanov, was a former Russian Foreign Minister. Ivanov’s replacement as Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, sits on the board of RIAC.
Other board members include the chairman of Russia’s two largest banks, Alfa Bank and Sberbank, as well as Sergei Prikhodko, the same Russian Deputy Prime Minister who invited Trump to Russia via Ivanka Trump’s friend Mira Duma in December of 2015 and was present on the Norwegian yacht excursion with Oleg Deripaska and Nastya Rybka in August of 2016.
RIAC also featured a military experts panel, which at one point was chaired by retired Major-General Alexander Vladimirov.
In 2007, Vladimirov wrote, in what amounts to an excellent description of Russian active measures, that “modern wars are waged on the level of consciousness and ideas,” continuing, “modern humanity exists in a state of permanent war” in which it is “eternally oscillating between phases of actual armed struggle and constant preparation for it.”
In addition to his role in RIAC, Timofeev has served as a professor at the Academy for Military Science in Russia since 2013.
Starting in 2015, Timofeev led the “Euro-Atlantic Security” program at the Valdai Discussion Club. It appears likely that Mifsud, who started speaking at Valdai in 2014, met Timofeev in this capacity.
“Dear George, Ivan,” Mifsud wrote in an email to both Papadopoulos and Timofeev. “As promised I had a long conversation today in Moscow with my dear friend Ivan from RIAC about a possible meeting between the two of you. Ivan is ready to meet with you in London (or USA or Moscow). I am putting the two of you in touch to discuss when and where this potential meeting can actually take place.”
The next day, April 19th, Timofeev moderated a panel at Valdai that featured Mifsud and a multi-millionaire Swiss-based German lawyer named Stephan Roh.
Roh, who Mifsud would later put in contact with Papadopoulous, and who would subsequently become and important figure in the later investigations into, and false counter-narratives regarding, Russian contacts with the Trump campaign during the 2016 election, was Mifsud’s close friend, business partner and personal attorney.
According to Simona Mangiante, who knew Mifsud and would later go on to marry Goerge Papadopoulos after the campaign, Roh was “the money behind [Mifsud].”
Mifsud’s Lawyer: Stephen Roh and Further Russian Connections
Though he is the founder of the Zurich-based law firm RoH ATTORNEYS AT LAW, Roh spoke at Valdai in his capacity as the President and CEO of ILS Energy, a consulting firm based out of Hong Kong.
Roh’s connections to Russia are manifold. His wife, Olga Roh, is a former Russian model for Versace and Valentino, and claims to be a direct descendent of Tsar Nicholas II.
In addition to homes in Switzerland, Monaco, Hong Kong and London, Stephan and Olga Roh purchased a ruined Scottish castle for £400,000, making them the Baron and Baroness of Inchdrewer.
As the owner of the fashion brand Rohmir (Roh + mir — the Russian word for “world/community”), the BBC described Olga Roh as “extraordinarily well-connected” within British high society. Photos exist of former Prime Minister Theresa May wearing a Rohmir jacket while meeting with Queen Elizabeth II.
Mifsud had known Roh for over a decade, and served as a consultant for Roh’s law firm. Roh, in return, was made a visiting lecturer at the London Academy of Diplomacy. The two men authored a series of reports together between 2015–2017.
As part of his role at Link University Campus in Rome, Mifsud was offered a finders fee for any investors he connected with the University. In 2016, Roh purchased 5% of Link Campus University’s parent company GEM.
Roh’s investment, which according to press reports from 2016 was meant to rise to 49% of the company before negative press from the Trump-Russia scandal apparently scuttled the relationship, coincided with an effort to float GEM on the stock market.
In 2005, Roh purchased a small British nuclear company Severnale Nuclear Services from its sole owner, a nuclear scientist named Dr. John Harbottle. According to the BBC, Roh then invited Dr. Harbottle on an all expenses paid trip to attend a conference in Moscow. Harbottle worried that when in Moscow he might be intentionally placed in a compromising situation, potentially even a honey-trap.
“We smelled a rat,” Harbottle told the BBC. “It didn’t’ sound as if it would ring true and I decided that I wasn’t going to go to this meeting.”
Despite the fact that Roh had no previous experience in the nuclear industry and Severnale formally listed only two employees, three years after he purchased it, Severnale inexplicably went from turning £42,000 in annual profits to £24 million ($43 million).
Through careful analysis of corporate records in the UK, Ireland, Cyprus and Russia, independent journalist Scott Stedman has shown that through a complex web of shell companies Roh’s Severnale Nuclear Services Ltd. might be related via a complex corporate ownership scheme to shell companies owned or related to Alexey Klishin, the Russian lawyer with Kremlin contracts who Mifsud had invited to speak in London in January 2016. Both Roh and Klishin have a relationship with Mifsud’s London Academy of Diplomacy.
Starting in 2011, R&B Secretarial Services, a company owned by Roh, began to work for Helena Investments, a UK company owned by a Russian businessman named Gleb Ageev. Ageev’s financial consulting firm Finrusinvest LLC has done extensive work with the Russian government, having partnered with the Russian Federal Agency for State Reserves, Rosneft and Gazprom.
In December of 2015, ownership over Finrusinvest LLC, which was then owned by a woman who according to press reports was an associate of Ageev’s, was transferred to Helena Investments. On the day of the transaction, the Russian government for reasons unknown awarded Finrusinvest LLC government contracts worth hundreds of millions of Rubles. Roh and Ageev’s business relationship lasted until October of 2016.
Further Communications with Ivan Timofeev
On the day that Mifsud, Roh and Timofeev held their panel discussion at Valdai, April 19th, 2016, Papadapoulos responded to Mifsud’s email linking him with Timofeev suggesting that they should meet later in the month.
After exchanging a few emails, Papadopoulos and Timofeev scheduled a Skype meeting for three days hence.
Also on the 19th, Papadopoulos had lunch with yet another Russian national and major Trump fan named Oleg Lebedev at the Byzantium Café in London. Papadopoulos believed that Lebedev worked in the oil business in Moscow but lived with his wife, Maria Alexopoulou, in London.
During the meeting, which had been arranged by Alexopoulou, Lebedev claimed to have high-level contacts in the Russian government and told Papadopoulos that Russia was a friend to Trump.
What exactly Papadopoulos and Timofeev discussed during their initial April 22nd Skype conversation remains unknown. Papadopoulos, who it must be remembered was convicted of lying to the FBI, told investigators that they likely discussed relations between Russia, Israel, Cyprus and China.
Two days after the conversation, FBI records show that Papadopoulos searched the name of Alisher Usmanov on LinkedIn. The Senate Intelligence Committee speculated, based on Papadopoulos’ past behavior, that this might indicate that Usmanov came up during the conversation.
Usmanov is an Uzbek-born multi-billionaire Russian oligarch with investments in precious metals and Gazprom. He’s been described by Craig Murray, the former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, as a vicious thug, criminal, racketeer, heroin trafficker and accused rapist.
Usmanov developed his early fortune through his relationship with the Russian gangster Andrei Skoch, who is tied to the Solntsevskaya Bratva criminal syndicate.
Read my description of Eurasian organized crime and the Solntsevskaya Bratva criminal syndicate here.
Usmanov was also at one point one of Facebook’s largest investors.
Papadopoulos and Timofeev also almost certainly discussed arranging to meet in person, as evidenced by Timofeev’s follow-up email. “George, thank you for the extensive talk! I propose we meet in London or in Moscow. What do you think?”
“Regarding a meeting,” Papadopoulos replied, “how about we set one up here in London with the Ambassador as well to discuss a process moving forward? Can you come next week? It’s my objective to set the groundwork for a potential trip and to understand the US.-Russia relationship before I submit to my team.”
“Next week is totally impossible, for I have to renew my visa,” Timofeev replied on the 24th. “I shall also need to consult with Minister [Igor] Ivanov.” Timofeev resumed their correspondence the next day. “I have just talked to Igor Ivanov — President of RIAC and former Foreign Minister of Russia. His advise [sic] is to start preparation of the Moscow visit via the Russian Embassy in Washington, for the issue is of a political kind.”
Between April 25th and 27th, Papadopoulos and Timofeev exchanged emails and set up another Skype conversation to discuss arranging a Trump trip to Moscow via the Russian Embassy in Washington, DC.
Also on the 25th, Papadopoulos connected with Dmitry Andreyko, First Secretary of the Russian Embassy in Ireland. This was the first of several Russian diplomats that Papadopoulos connected with on LinkedIn. In September of 2016 Papadopoulos connected with Sergei Nalobin, the aforementioned Russian diplomat who left Britain under a cloud of suspicion that he was involved with the Russian intelligence services.
At the same time he was communicating with Timofeev, Papadopulous was also exchanging emails with Trump’s far-right Senior Policy Advisor Stephen Miller and providing his input on an upcoming foreign policy speech delivered by Trump at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC.
After providing his edits, Papadopoulos wrote to Miller, “I was recently hosted by the Israeli government after I delivered a talk at an energy and security conference there. They are ready to host Mr. Trump when the time is right for him (and have also invited him to a big conference the largest newspaper there is hosting in July that Netanyahu will also be speaking at). The Russian government has an open invitation by Putin for Mr. Trump to meet him when he is ready as well. The advantage of being in London is that these governments tend to speak a bit more openly in “neutral” cities.”
Of Russian Dirt, Hillary’s Emails… And The Question Of What The Trump Campaign Knew
On April 26th, Joseph Mifsud and Papadopoulous met again for yet another breakfast meeting at the Andaz Hotel. Papadopoulous later described thinking that Mifsud seemed “giddy… like he had something to get off his chest.”
Mifsud explained to Papadopoulos that while in Moscow he had met with senior Russian government officials as well as various Russian academics, among others. Mifsud then told Papadopulous that the Russians had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton in the form of “thousands of emails.”
Mifsud delivered this news to Papadopoulos just over a month after the GRU had exfiltrated John Podesta’s emails on March 21st.
When asked by Papadopoulos how he could know such information, Mifsud replied, “they told me.”
The question of what, if anything, George Papadopoulos shared with anyone on the Trump campaign about what Mifsud had told him about the Russians being in possession of dirt on Hillary Clinton remains mysterious and hotly debated.
In his subsequent interviews with the FBI and the Special Counsel’s Office, Papadopoulos never denied having told somebody on the campaign about the information.
Rather, he claimed on numerous occasions, and only after confronted with previous demonstrable falsehoods he had told investigators, the he couldn’t recall having told any Trump campaign officials.
Of the Trump campaigners who were asked if Papadopoulos had ever spoken to them of the matter, they’re responses ranged from outright denials to claims of not being able to remember.
In later testimony before the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee, Trump campaign policy director John K. Mashburn recalled that Papadopoulos had sent an email to the campaign in the first half of 2016 alerting it that Russia had damaging information on Clinton.
Mashburn, who said that other campaign officials would have been copied, claimed that he didn’t take Papadopoulos seriously. Despite Mashburn’s recollection under oath, neither the Senate Intelligence Committee or the Special Counsel’s Office were able to find the email he referred to.
The Committee later wrote of this key issue: “The Committee could not determine if Papadopoulos informed anyone on the Trump Campaign of the information, though the Committee finds it implausible that Papadopoulos did not do so.”
Papadopoulos’ Trump-Putin Meeting Efforts Cont’d
“Great speech today from Mr. Trump,” Papadopoulos wrote to Stephen Miller following his April 27th Skype meeting with Timofeev, which took place shortly after Trump’s speech at the Mayflower Hotel during which he laid out his desire to work with Putin and the Russians. “If you have a chance for a [S]kype session tomorrow or Friday, let me know. Have some interesting messages coming in from Moscow when the time is right.”
Papapopoulos sent another message that same day to Corey Lewandowski. “The reason for my message is because I wanted to ask if you are free for a call tomorrow or Friday to discuss Russia’s interest in hosting Mr. Trump. Have been receiving a lot of calls over the last month about Putin wanting to host him and the team when the time is right.”
Papadopoulos then wrote to Mifsud and Polonskaya, writing to them to ask if they had heard Trump’s speech.
“I agree with many things,” Polonskaya replied. “And I like the fact that his (your) position towards Russia is much softer than many of the Republicans and Democrats.”
“I am now in the process of seeing if we will come to Russia,” Papadopoulos replied a day later. “Do you recommend I get in touch with a minister or embassy person in Washington or London to begin organizing the trip?”
“I think it would be better to discuss this question with Josef [Mifsud],” she replied.
“I haven’t heard from the Russian embassy or anyone about sending an invitation,” Papadopoulos to Mifsud on April 29th. “I need an answer for my campaign.”
Mifsud replied within two minutes, asking if he should call. Though there are no records of Papadopoulos and Mifsud speaking over the phone, or if they did what they spoke about, Papadopoulos indicated in his subsequent correspondence with Polonskaya that he and Mifsud had spoken.
If this was the case, Papadopoulos and Mifsud had a means of communicating that later investigators were unaware of.
Throughout this same period, Papadopoulos continued to communicate with Ivan Timofeev. Between their Skype call on the 27th and the 30th, they exchanged five emails.
“Please, do send me another draft letter to the Ambassador,” Timofeev wrote to Papadopoulos shortly after the latters supposed phone discussion with Mifsud. “I will look through it an propose my followup [sic].”
“The draft letter I send cannot be better than Mr. Trump’s precise speech on his intentions to repair US.-Russia ties,” Papadopoulos replied to Timofeev, referring to the Mayflower speech.
“I assume the speech was widely covered. We have already been invited by four countries to visit in the summer and our schedule is moving at a very fast pace. For this reason, I have until Weds to give my team an update on the potential trip to meet Mr. Putin. I am supposed to be in Greece on Monday to meet with officials there, but can come back to London next week to arrange a meeting with people here in a “neutral” city. The message should be, we are keen to meet and discuss US.-Russia ties and where they can be improved.”
“I have discussed this opportunity with Min. Ivanov,” Mifsud wrote to Papadopoulos on April 30th in an email with the subject RUSSIAN REPLY. “He proposed to start with the Russian Ambassador in Moscow. George (you will need to draft a letter (Ivan is ready to help you … please contact him urgently) and he will provide his follow up to you. As for the contacts, Ivan (and others- through Olga) will make an enquiry in Moscow how to proceed.”
“Mr. Trump’s speech should have been the signal to meet,” Papadopoulos informed Mifsud, showing a growing impatience. “My campaign won’t be interested in asking to visit Moscow. Guests are either invited or they are not.”
Mifsud quickly replied, claiming that he had “just spoken to them,” referring to the Russians, and that “[t]hey will let you know who to meet to organise it with an invite.”
“Excellent, thank you for your critical help on this, [J]osef,” Papadopoulos replied. “It’s history making if it happens.”
Four days later, on May 4th, Timofeev wrote to Papadopoulos that he had spoken with his contacts at the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs and that they were “open for cooperation.”
Papadopoulos forwarded Timofeev’s message to Corey Lewandowski the same day with the subject line Fwd: (Russian outreach).
Five minutes after receiving the message, Lewandowski forwarded it to Sam Clovis. Clovis replied to Lewandowski, “I think there are some legal issues we will have to mitigate, meeting with foreign officials as a private citizen. Let me check and I will get back to you today.”
Papadopoulos replied to Timofeev on May 7th, explaining that the delay in a response from the campaign was due to “shuffling that has occurred since Mr. Trump clinched the nomination. I will get back to you and Joseph soon on this. Glad the MFA is interested.”
Mifsud, who was cc’d, replied to Papadopoulos asking that he call him. Once again, while there are no public records about the call, emails suggest that they arranged to speak over Skype. The contents of this conversation remain unknown.
The next article will cover how Papadopoulos informed an Australian diplomat and the Greek Foreign Minister that the Russians possessed Hillary’s emails and his attempts to arrange a meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.