A Call for a Coup Plus a Week Like No Other for Tulsi Gabbard
Clinton, McRaven and Pelosi all are featured
By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • October 22, 2019
There was what might be described as an extraordinary amount of nonsense being promoted by last week’s media. Unfortunately, some of it was quite dangerous. Admiral William McRaven, who commanded the Navy Seals when Osama bin Laden was captured and killed and who has been riding that horse ever since, announced that if Donald Trump continues to fail to provide the type of leadership the country needs, he should be replaced by whatever means are necessary. The op-ed entitled “Our Republic is Under Attack by the President” with the subtitle “If President Trump doesn’t demonstrate the leadership that America needs, then it is time for a new person in the Oval Office” was featured in the New York Times, suggesting that the Gray Lady was providing its newspaper of record seal of approval for what might well be regarded as a call for a military coup.
McRaven’s exact words, after some ringing praise for the military and all its glorious deeds in past wars, were that the soldiers, sailors and marines now must respond because “The America that they believed in was under attack, not from without, but from within.”
McRaven then elaborated that “These men and women, of all political persuasions, have seen the assaults on our institutions: on the intelligence and law enforcement community, the State Department and the press. They have seen our leaders stand beside despots and strongmen, preferring their government narrative to our own. They have seen us abandon our allies and have heard the shouts of betrayal from the battlefield. As I stood on the parade field at Fort Bragg, one retired four-star general, grabbed my arm, shook me and shouted, ‘I don’t like the Democrats, but Trump is destroying the Republic!’”
It is a call to arms if there ever was one. Too bad Trump can’t strip McRaven of his pension and generous health care benefits for starters and McRaven might also consider that he could be recalled to active duty by Trump and court martialed under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. And the good admiral, who up until 2018 headed the state university system in Texas, might also receive well merited pushback for his assessment of America’s role in the world over the past two decades, in which he was a major player, at least in terms of dealing out punishment. He wrote ““We are the most powerful nation in the world because we try to be the good guys. We are the most powerful nation in the world because our ideals of universal freedom and equality have been backed up by our belief that we were champions of justice, the protectors of the less fortunate.”
Utter bullshit, of course. The United States has been acting as the embodiment of a rogue nation, lashing out pointlessly and delivering death and destruction. If McRaven truly believes what he says he is not only violating his oath to defend the constitution while also toying with treason, he is an idiot and should never have been allowed to run anything more demanding than a hot dog stand. Washington has been systematically blowing people up worldwide for no good reasons, killing possibly as many as 4 million mostly Muslims, while systematically stripping Americans of their Bill of Rights at home. “Good guys” and “champions of justice” indeed!
And then there is the Great Hillary Clinton caper. In an interview last week Hillary claimed predictably that Donald Trump is “Vladimir Putin’s dream,” and then went on to assert that there would be other Russian assets emerging, including nestled in the bosom of her own beloved Democratic Party. She said, clearly suggesting that it would be Tulsi Gabbard, that “They’re also going to do third-party again. I’m not making any predictions, but I think they’ve got their eye on someone who’s currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate. She’s the favorite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far.”
Clinton explained how the third-party designation would work, saying of Jill Stein, who ran for president in 2016 as a Green Party candidate, “And that’s assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not because she’s also a Russian asset. Yeah, she’s a Russian asset — I mean, totally. They know they can’t win without a third-party candidate. So I don’t know who it’s going to be, but I will guarantee you they will have a vigorous third-party challenge in the key states that they most needed.”
Tulsi responded courageously and accurately “Great! Thank you @HillaryClinton. You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain. From the day I announced my candidacy, there has been a concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was behind it and why. Now we know — it was always you, through your proxies and powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose. It’s now clear that this primary is between you and me. Don’t cowardly hide behind your proxies. Join the race directly.”
Tulsi has in fact been attacked relentlessly by the Establishment since she announced that she would be running for the Democratic nomination. Shortly before last Tuesday’s Democratic candidate debate the New York Times ran an article suggesting that Gabbard was an isolationist, was being promoted by Russia and was an apologist for Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. In reality, Gabbard is the only candidate willing to confront America’s warfare-national security state.
The Hillary Clinton attack on Gabbard and on the completely respectable Jill Stein is to a certain extent incomprehensible unless one lives in the gutter that she and Bill have wallowed in ever since they rose to prominence in Arkansas. Hillary, the creator of the private home server for classified information as well as author of the catastrophic war against Libya and the Benghazi debacle has a lot to answer for but will never be held accountable, any more than her husband Bill for his rapes and molestation. And when it comes to foreign interference, Gabbard is being pilloried because the Russian media regards her favorably while the Clinton Foundation has taken tens of millions of dollars from foreign governments and billionaires seeking quid pro quos, much of which has gone to line the pockets of Hillary, Bill and Chelsea.
Finally, one comment about the Democratic Party obsession with the Russians. The media was enthusing last Friday over a photo of Speaker Nancy Pelosi standing up across a table from President Trump and pointing at him before walking out of the room. The gushing regarding how a powerful, strong woman was defying the horrible chief executive was both predictable and ridiculous. By her own admission Pelosi’s last words before departing were “All roads lead to Putin.” I will leave it up to the reader to interpret what that was supposed to mean.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org
‘Russians will have a fight on their hands’: Alaska governor vows to thwart ‘independence referendum & annexation’ in prank call
RT | October 20, 2019
Governor Mike Dunleavy said he was aware of Moscow’s plan to stage an independence referendum to reclaim Alaska, and promised to arrange a gold nugget for the visiting Ukrainian leader, in a phone call with Russian pranksters.
The governor seemed honored to receive such a ‘high-profile’ call from none other than Ukrainian Prime Minister and the country’s ambassador to the US. Unsurprisingly, the key topic of the conversation was the omnipresent ‘Russian threat’.
The duo of pranksters informed Dunleavy of a sinister plan, masterminded by the Kremlin, to reclaim Alaska. They explained that Moscow believes it had only temporary rented Alaska to the US back in 1876, and now – especially since the state has a maritime border with Russia, while being separated from the rest of the American territory by Canada – wants its land back.
“I’ve heard about that. I’ve been reading up on it and I’m obviously keeping an eye on it, so is our president.”
The pranksters revealed that Moscow had already sent its ‘agents’ to the 49th US state to bribe the indigenous people in order to organize an ‘independence referendum’ and ‘annex’ Alaska under that pretext. Worried by the new details of the vile plan, the governor said that he would “certainly be talking to folks in DC about this information.”
The Russians “will have a fight on their hands” if they lay their claim to Alaska, the governor stated, vowing to defend his state.
“All I can say on behalf of Alaskans – we are Americans, and we have no desire to become part of Russia.”
On a less ‘serious’ subject, the prank-callers wondered if it would be possible to organize a trip to Klondike for the Ukrainian leader – and make sure that he finds a gold nugget there.
“I’m sure we can talk to some folks that can help arrange that,” Dunleavy promised, fully welcoming the idea of Petro Poroshenko’s visit to Alaska. The conversation apparently took place in early 2019 when Poroshenko was still Ukrainian President, but was only released online this Friday.
The two tricksters behind the prank, Alexey Stolyarov and Vladimir Kuznetsov, otherwise known as Lexus and Vovan, have made a name for themselves with a series of phone pranks on high-profile officials, previously getting over on French President Emmanuel Macron, Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff, as well as former US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, then UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and hawkish US special envoy to Venezuela Elliott Abrams.
No Inquest for Dawn Sturgess
By Craig Murray | October 18, 2019
The killing of poor Dawn Sturgess was much the most serious of the events in Salisbury and Amesbury that attracted international attention. Yet nobody has been charged, no arrest warrant issued and no inquest held.
The inquest for Dawn Sturgess has today been yet again postponed, for the fourth time, and for the first time no new prospective date has been given for it to open. Alarmingly, the coroner’s office are referring press enquiries to Scotland Yard’s Counter Terrorism Command – which ought to have no role in an inquest process supposed to be independent of the police.
Congratulations to Rob Slane and to John Helmer for their excellent work in following this.
It appears very probable that the independent coroner’s inquiry process is going to be cancelled and, as in the case of David Kelly, replaced by a politically controlled “public inquiry” with a trusty or malleable judge in charge, like Lord Hutton of Kincora. This is because the truth of Dawn Sturgess’ death in itself destroys key elements of the government’s narrative on what happened in Salisbury.
Simply put, the chemical that killed Dawn Sturgess could not have been the same that allegedly poisoned the Skripals. Charlie Rowley is adamant that he found it in a packaged and fully sealed perfume bottle, in a charity bin. Furthermore he states that it was a charity bin he combed through regularly and it had not been there earlier, in the three months between the alleged attack on the Skripals and his taking it from the bin.
The government narrative that “Boshirov and Petrov” used that perfume bottle to attack the Skripals, then somehow resealed the cellophane, and disposed of it in the bin, depends on the Russians having a tiny plastic resealing technology concealed on them (and why bother?), on their taking a long detour to dispose of the “perfume” in a charity bin – the one method that guaranteed it being found and reused – and the “perfume” then achieving a lengthy period of invisibility in the bin before appearing again three months later.
Those are only some of a number of inconvenient facts. Perfume does not come as a gel; it cannot both have been applied as a gel to the Skripals’ doorknob and sprayed on to Dawn Sturgess’ wrists. Gels do not spray. Neither Porton Down nor the OPCW was able to state it was from the same batch as the chemical allegedly used on the Skripals’ house.
Then there is the fascinating fact that it took eleven days of intensive searching for a vial of liquid in a small modern home, for the police to find the perfume bottle sitting on the kitchen counter.
Nobody has been charged with the manslaughter or murder of Dawn Sturgess. There is still an international arrest warrant out for Boshirov and Petrov for the attack on the Skripals. Very interestingly indeed, this warrant has never been changed into the names of Chepiga and Mishkin.
From the moment I heard of the attack on Dawn Sturgess I worried that she – a person down on her luck and living in a hostel – was exactly the kind of person the powerful and wealthy would view as a disposable human being if her death fitted their narrative. The denial of an inquest for her, and the complete lack of interest by the mainstream media in the obvious nonsense of the official story that ties her to the Skripal poisoning, tends to confirm these fears. What Dawn Sturgess’ death tells us, beyond doubt, is that the government narrative is fake and the Skripal and Sturgess cases are two separate incidents. Which makes a local origin of the chemical very much more likely. No wonder the government is determined to avoid the inquest.
I was struck today that the tame neo-con warmongering “Chemical weapons expert” Hamish De Bretton Gordon, former head of the British Army’s chemical weapons unit, appeared on Sky News. He was being interviewed on use of white phosphorous by Turkey in Syria and repeatedly tried to deflect the narrative on to alleged chemical weapons use by Syrian government forces, arguing that the present crisis was the moral responsibility of those who opposed western military action against Assad. But what particularly struck me was that he appeared by Skype – from Salisbury. When you look at the British government’s own chemical weapons expertise, you are continually led back to Salisbury, perhaps not surprisingly given the location of Porton Down.
I am aiming to make a full documentary film on the Salisbury events entitled “Truth and the Skripals”, based around the questions raised on this blog. I shall be looking to launch crowdfunding for the documentary shortly, probably within the week.
Hillary Clinton Pitches Conspiracy Theory That Tulsi Gabbard, Jill Stein Are Russian Assets
By Tyler Durden – Zero Hedge – 10/18/2019
Hillary Clinton is still peddling election-related conspiracy theories, this time hinting that 2020 Democratic contender Tulsi Gabbard is being ‘groomed’ to split the Democratic vote as a third party candidate, thus handing the election to President Trump.
Speaking with former Obama 2008 campaign manager David Plouffe on his podcast, “Campaign HQ with David Plouffe,” Clinton said – without mentioning Gabbard by name: “I’m not making any predictions but I think they’ve got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate. She’s the favorite of the Russians.”
Of course, that’s “assuming Jill Stein will give it up – because she’s also a Russian asset,” Clinton continued.
Earlier in the interview, Clinton hinted that the Trump 2020 campaign is still in “contact with the Russians,” and that “we have to assume that since it worked for them, why would they quit?”
“Donald Trump is Vladimir Putin’s dream,” Clinton added. “I don’t know what Putin has on him – whether its both personal and financial, I assume it is. But more than that, there’s this bizarre adulation Trump has for dictators.”
Clinton also insisted that Russia “did affect the outcome of the election” in 2016, despite the DOJ concluding otherwise.
Incredible!
EVEN CNN hosts gasp at guest’s claim that Tulsi Gabbard is ‘a Russian puppet’
RT | October 15, 2019
Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard is no stranger to mainstream media smears, but even a panel of CNN hosts and analysts audibly gasped when one guest outright accused the Hawaii congresswoman of working for Russia.
What started off as a standard panel discussion on Tuesday’s upcoming Democratic debate quickly took a dark turn, as CNN political analyst Bakari Sellers accused Gabbard of foreign allegiances. As soon as Gabbard’s name was mentioned, Sellers took the opportunity to claim that there “is a chance that Tulsi’s not just working for the United States of America.”
The dramatic accusation prompted uncomfortable shuffling from the rest of the panel, with CNN contributor April Ryan asking “ohh, wait a minute, what?” Sitting opposite Sellers, commentator Angela Rye jumped in to stress that any accusations of Gabbard working for a foreign power are just “an allegation.”
Sellers was not content to quit, however, adding that it was “not just an allegation” — despite the fact that there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that Gabbard is compromised by any foreign country.
Then Sellers got into the specifics.
“There’s no question, there is no question that Tulsi Gabbard, of all the 12 [debate participants], is a puppet for the Russian government.”
“How is there no question?” host Alisyn Camerota asked, seemingly taken aback by the seriousness of the claim. Sellers instantly cited Gabbard’s position on the war in Syria as proof.
Indeed, the unapologetically anti-war candidate has faced similar smears of being an “Assad apologist” and a “Putin puppet” multiple times due to her criticisms of US foreign policy in Syria, where she believes Washington should never have backed and funded jihadist rebels fighting President Bashar Assad.
As for Sellers himself, he has endorsed California Senator Kamala Harris for president, so his distaste for Gabbard is not entirely surprising. Gabbard won broad praise for expertly taking Harris to task on her record as a prosecutor during an earlier debate — so much so that the hashtag #KamalaHarrisDestroyed even trended on Twitter (but that was apparently Russia’s fault, too).
While Sellers did face some mild pushback from the CNN panel, none of the participants rushed to wholeheartedly defend Gabbard, either. The analyst did experience the wrath of Twitter, however.
Journalist Max Blumenthal tweeted that Sellers comment was somewhat ironic since he is “an actual puppet for corporate America and AIPAC.” Sellers is an activist for the pro-Israel AIPAC lobbying organization, which is accused of waging outsized influence in US domestic politics and foreign policy.
Investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald called Sellers’ comments “repugnant, McCarthyite accusations of treason” and noted that the CNN panel moved quickly on and would surely allow him back to repeat the same smears on another occasion.
“If there were a shred of proof that she is working for the Russian government she would be in a whole world of trouble,” another user wrote, noting that Gabbard is a major in the National Guard and a member of congress with top secret security clearance.
The anti-Gabbard smears have been bubbling in mainstream media since before she even announced her candidacy, but they went into overdrive after she entered the race for president.
NBC has accused her of being supported by Russian trolls on Twitter, while the New York Times recently published a hit piece in the ‘news’ section, headlined: “What, Exactly, Is Tulsi Gabbard Up To?” The piece speculated that Gabbard’s anti-interventionist stances might somehow make her a Russian stooge, even citing coverage of her campaign by RT of all news organizations as some kind of proof.
Gabbard also won no friends within the Democratic Party in 2016 after she stepped down as DNC vice chair, endorsed Bernie Sanders and accused the party of bias in favor of Hillary Clinton.
Gabbard has continued her criticism of her party during this election cycle, too — so it’s no wonder that the mainstream media and Democratic establishment haven’t exactly warmed to her candidacy.
Propaganda 101: The New York Times pumps another ‘evil Russia’ plot
By Finian Cunningham | RT | October 10, 2019
The “newspaper of record” New York Times arguably holds the record for peddling anti-Russia scare stories. This week the NY Times delivered yet another classic spook tale dressed as serious news.
Among its splash articles, under the headline ‘Top Secret Russian Unit Seeks to Destabilize Europe, Security Officials Say’, readers were told of an elite Russian spy team which has, allegedly, only recently been discovered.
It’s called “Unit 29155” and purportedly directed by the Kremlin to “destabilize Europe” with “subversion, sabotage and assassination.”
According to the NY Times, this crack squad of Russia’s most ruthless military intelligence agents were involved in an attempted assassination of an arms dealer in Bulgaria in 2015; the destabilization of Moldova; a failed coup against the Montenegrin government; and the alleged poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal in England last year.
The article states: “Western security officials have now concluded that these operations, and potentially many others, are part of a coordinated and ongoing campaign to destabilize Europe, executed by an elite unit inside the Russian intelligence system skilled in subversion, sabotage and assassination.”
The NY Times adds: “The purpose of Unit 29155, which has not been previously reported, underscores the degree to which the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, is actively fighting the West with his brand of so-called hybrid warfare — a blend of propaganda, hacking attacks and disinformation — as well as open military confrontation.”
This is all because, the readers are told, “The Kremlin sees Russia as being at war with a Western liberal order that it views as an existential threat.”
In response, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed it as more of the “pulp fiction category” which Western news media have manufactured with seeming increasing intensity over recent years. Peskov pointed out that Moscow has repeatedly stated its desire to normalize relations with Western states and the European Union in particular, contradicting the theme of the NY Times’ piece.
Indeed, the Russian Embassy in Britain recently published a compilation of false articles peddled by Western media over the past four years. The NY Times features prominently as one of the main purveyors of scare stories about alleged malign Russian activities, from hacking into presidential elections, to targeting American power grids, to covert collusion with President Donald Trump.
For students of Propaganda 101, this week’s tale makes a case study of how disinformation is disseminated in the guise of “news reporting.”
First of all, the NY Times reporter, Michael Schwirtz, gives a meandering account of lurid dirty deeds performed in various international locations allegedly carried out by the supposed “elite” Kremlin hybrid warriors. But tellingly, there are no details evidencing Russian involvement. It’s all lurid speculation spiced with fear-mongering, which reads like a pallid John le Carré spy novel.
Then, the usual giveaway that the NY Times is engaging in disinformation, it quotes anonymous security officials for apparent verification of its claims about “Unit 29155”. This is tacit admission of who the real authors are: Western spooks.
Next, a neat effort to give the lame story some legs is to quote named public figures. But these sources don’t confirm the existence of the alleged Kremlin unit; they are merely invited to speculate on its existence and presumed malign purpose. One of those named sources is MI6 chief Alex Younger. Yes, that’s right, the paper of record is quoting British military intelligence as a reliable source for public information. Another named source is Peter Zwack, who is described as a former US military intelligence officer who worked at the American Embassy in Moscow. Zwack is quoted as describing Russians as “organically ruthless” (whatever that means), while the paper actually admits that “he was not aware of the unit’s existence.”
The purpose of throwing a few names into the reporting mix is to lend a veneer of credibility to the nebulous, unverifiable, scary stuff that the anonymous spooks feed the reporter.
A special mention must be given to a third named source quoted by the NY Times. He is Eerik-Niiles Kross, an Estonian lawmaker and former military intelligence chief in Tallinn. He styles himself as “Estonia’s James Bond,” and is known for his salacious Russophobic warnings of “imminent invasion of the Baltic states” – over the past three decades. Kross is quoted to speculate on the existence of the alleged Kremlin hybrid warfare unit. Of course, he dutifully serves up his notorious anti-Russian fear-mongering. But he is not confirming. His speculation is pseudo-validation of information that is essentially fictional.
All in all, the latest installment of anti-Russia propaganda from the NY Times this week is a damp squib among many previous baseless reports of alleged Kremlin malign activity. If it serves any purpose, it is perhaps a choice illustration of how disinformation is sneakily, insidiously presented as ‘news’. The fact that this should appear in a Pulitzer Prize-winning, supposedly premier, American newspaper is the disturbing part.
But it is no surprise to those who have long studied how the US corporate media has been under the control of state intelligence agencies for many decades, especially after the Second World War and during the subsequent Cold War against the Soviet Union.
In a seminal essay in 1977 for Rolling Stone magazine, award-winning journalist Carl Bernstein documented how the CIA systematically cultivated hundreds of reporters, columnists, editors, publishing executives and broadcast networks to function as conduits for disinformation – much of it directed at demonizing the Soviet Union.
“From the outset, the use of journalists was among the CIA’s most sensitive undertakings,” writes Bernstein.
He added: “By far the most valuable of these associations, according to CIA officials, have been with the New York Times, CBS and Time Inc.”
How the CIA goes about planting false stories in the American and European media is outlined in this candid interview by John Stockwell, who was former National Security Council coordinator for the agency during the 1970s. Stockwell also added: “Enemies are necessary for the wheels of the US military machine to turn.”
You may wonder, if the Cold War ended nearly 30 years ago when the Soviet Union dissolved, why then do the NY Times and other Western media outlets continue to pump out anti-Russian propaganda? But that assumes the Cold War was primarily about the US opposing the ideology of communism. It wasn’t. It was, and still is, all about imposing control over the masses so they don’t ever challenge the power structure that deprives them of full democratic rights and decent livelihoods.
In a recent interview, philosopher André Vitchek makes the point that Western politicians and media like the NY Times keep harping on Cold War scare stories about evil foreigners in order “to distract their citizens from thinking about their increasingly limited freedoms and diminishing standards of living.”
The Cold War continues, and anti-Russia hysteria is but a distraction, as was the anti-Soviet hysteria. The aim is to distract the public from the real Cold War which is a war by the elites against democracy ever being actually realized among the masses.
Announcement: Purges and Counter-Narratives
By Ron Unz • Unz Review • October 9, 2019
I doubt that any event in human history has been as thoroughly discussed and documented as the Second World War, the gigantic global struggle that ended three generations ago and shaped our modern world. Elements of that conflict have probably been the subject of hundreds of thousands of books over the decades along with countless articles in newspapers and magazines, and they still pervade our electronic media on a daily basis. Moreover, the story told by nearly all of these authors seems generally consistent, thereby appearing to constitute a very solid fabric of historical reality.
Yet there exists strong evidence that this factual consistency is more apparent than real, with those writers who substantially deviate from the accepted framework having long been denied distribution via mainstream channels of information. The growth of the Internet over the last two decades began bringing disturbing anomalies to my attention, and I gradually recognized this broader problem, which became the basis of my American Pravda articles published over the last few years.
As I described in one of my articles, as early as 1940 some of America’s most prominent and highly-regarded journalists and academics were purged from public life because they maintained their intellectual integrity while most of their peer-group bent to the prevailing ideological winds. When those who dispute a particular view of events quickly disappear from all public discussions, this may naturally intimidate the remainder, while any subsequent consistency becomes a synthetic artifact of selection-bias. And since the vast majority of later writers learn their histories within this sharply-restricted framework, the false reality they absorb gradually becomes self-perpetuating over time.
Many of the individuals cast out by the media for their discordant views had once stood at the pinnacle of public influence, and their thoughtful writings often continued long after their national audiences had been eliminated. Taken together, their works provide a perspective radically different from that of our official histories.
Over the last two years, many of my articles have used these sources to reconstruct what may be a more accurate history of the Second World War, and I recently drew upon my findings to publish American Pravda: Understanding World War II. This article is intended to provide a reasonably compact but comprehensive counter-narrative to our official histories of the central event of the twentieth century. Even 20,000 words of text hardly seems excessive when it seeks to challenge and rebut so many tens of millions of pages written on the other side.
The early response to this very long piece has certainly been quite heartening. In just over two weeks it has attracted more readership than almost any of our other website articles have accumulated over the last six months, while also provoking well over 200,000 words of commentary, much of it quite detailed and thoughtful.
Historical analysis is not entirely an intellectual exercise since it may often shed an important light on present-day events of great importance. Once we begin to accept that there is considerable evidence that the history of the twentieth century believed by nearly all Americans may be in serious error and perhaps actually inverted, we naturally become far more willing to question our ongoing official narratives on important foreign and domestic policy matters. Moreover, the past media purges of dissenting academics and journalists allows us to more easily recognize the exact same developments taking place today, sometimes with very grave consequences.
Consider the case of Stephen F. Cohen. With an academic career at Princeton and New York University that stretches back for more than a half-century, Prof. Cohen certainly ranks as one of our most eminent Russia scholars, and his presence had loomed very large throughout the Reagan Era and afterward, with his Sovieticus column being a regular mid-1980s feature of The Nation magazine, America’s left-liberal flagship publication.
Yet with the Cold War against Russia now recently revived in perhaps an even more dangerous and destructive form by his former liberal Democratic Party allies, his views seem almost nowhere to be found in the mainstream media organs that shape the reality of our ruling policy-elites. Instead, the ignorant journalists who function as our unofficial gatekeepers have crudely castigated him as one of Putin’s “American Dupes.”
In recent years, his regular appearances on the John Batchelor Show of WABC radio have represented one of his few remaining public platforms, and I’m very pleased to have recently made arrangements to republish all of these hundreds of broadcasts on our website, together with their brief descriptive summaries and several of Prof. Cohen’s other articles from this same period, thereby making this important material conveniently available to an additional audience at a very dangerous time. With Russiagate having finally collapsed only to be succeeded by Ukrainegate, I would particularly recommend his February interview entitled “How the Russiagate Investigation Is Sovietizing American Politics.”
Along with providing a helpful new distribution channel for such an eminent academic scholar, we have begun doing the same for Whitney Webb of MintPress News, whose remarkable investigative work has begun attracting a great deal of attention over the last year, breaking important new ground in the Jeffrey Epstein case and other controversial matters. Her long, copiously-reported articles have revealed important facts regularly excluded from the mainstream media, setting a new standard of courageous journalism.
The New Yorker’s Partisan Attempt to Refute Its Claim of Partisan Disinformation on Biden and Ukraine
By Joe Lauria | Consortium News | October 8, 2019
The New Yorker‘s Jane Mayer has gained a reputation as one of the best reporters in Washington, but in her latest piece on Ukraine and former Vice President Joe Biden, Mayer has succumbed to the partisan mania ripping apart this city and much of the country.
There is little subtlety in her argument, as evidenced by the title of the piece: “The Invention of the Conspiracy Theory on Biden and Ukraine.” Rather than taking an impartial, non-partisan view—needed now more than ever in journalism—Mayer neglects evidence that would have produced a more nuanced report on this increasingly volatile story.
Such an achievement required the suppression of a seasoned reporter’s natural curiosity. Maybe the other side has evidence worth examining too.
Mayer is not alone in dismissing serious questions about Biden as merely “a repeatedly discredited conspiracy theory involving Joe Biden and his son Hunter’s work in Ukraine.” In doing so, Mayer has joined an unthinking media consensus protecting Biden and the media’s own interests to save itself from the shame of having pushed the now discredited conspiracy theory of Trump’s collusion with Russia. With the Trump Justice Department digging into the origins of that fiasco it was the perfect time to preempt its findings with a trumped up impeachment scandal. The last thing the intelligence agencies and their compliant media need are revelations about how they together duped the country.
Mayer, who distinguished herself on many stories, including a defense of the wrongly accused National Security Agency senior executive Tom Drake—an actual whistleblower—reduced herself to the journalists’ herd that gave Russiagate credence, and in the process undermined scores of media reputations.
Instead of owning up to it, Mayer writes that the media was manipulated in 2016, not by Democrats or intelligence officials, but by Republican partisans. She produces a line about Ukrainegate that would more credibly describe media accomplices in Russiagate: “News organizations continue to be just as susceptible to manipulation by political partisans pushing complicated and hard-to-check foreign narratives as they were in 2016.”
Mayer’s unwillingness to see the corruption of both major parties is stunning.
She writes: “Anyone trying to track the Ukrainian conspiracy stories that were eventually embraced by President Trump is likely to get mired in the same echo chamber of right-wing news purveyors that misinformed voters in 2016” (except that in 2016 it was an echo chamber aligned with Democrats).
Mayer only blames Republicans who were largely on the defensive during Russiagate. Her exoneration of Democrats then and now for misinforming voters, extends to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s approval of an uranium deal with Russia, after which, Mayer reports, “more than two million dollars in contributions” came to “the Clinton Foundation from the businessmen behind the deal.” She says Clinton is in the clear because other U.S. agencies also approved the deal and the amount of uranium was “negligible.” It was all just a conservative plot, Mayer tells us.
The Biggest Omissions
Mayer attributes the origins of Biden’s appearance of conflict of interest in Ukraine solely to a disinformation campaign run by a shadowy group set up by Donald Trump’s former chief strategist, the right wing activist, Steve Bannon.
This is intended to put a nail in the story at its origins, portraying it as just a nutty conservative conspiracy, and thus no one needs to be concerned about significant evidence that followed. “For nearly two years, conservative operatives have been trying to weaponize the Ukraine-based story that has led Trump to the brink of impeachment,” Mayer wrote.
She takes at face value Bannon’s braggadocio about his so-called Government Accountability Initiative being “key” and the “predicate” to the Biden-Ukraine story, allowing her to easily dismiss an array of facts, including a public admission of corruption by Biden himself, as merely an “unethically seeming morass.”
Of all the evidence missing from Mayer’s piece, perhaps the most important is the opening act of this Washington drama: the U.S.-backed coup that overthrew an elected Ukrainian government in 2014. Without that evidence it is impossible to understand the context of the nauseating Biden/Ukraine impeachment story. She is not alone in this either. The entire elite liberal media and Fox News won’t mention it in a bipartisan cover-up of rapacious American foreign policy.
The press usually takes 25 years, after the declassification of documents, to admit the United States routinely breaks international law by overthrowing sovereign governments, and not in the name of spreading democracy, but in the interests of capital and geo-strategy. That was the case with Ukraine in 2014.
Hunter and Joe Biden at Obama’s 2009 inaugural parade
Can you imagine if the Trump administration finally succeeds in overthrowing the Venezuelan government and a couple of months later Vice President Mike Pence’s son (who wasn’t kicked out of the Navy for drug use) lands a spot on the board of a privatized Venezuelan national oil company?
That is exactly what happened with Biden and his son Hunter in Ukraine.
And then imagine that the U.S.-installed government of Juan Guaidó begins an investigation into corruption at the oil company and wants to question Pence’s son. So Pence flies to Caracas and tells Guaidó he won’t get a $1 billion U.S. credit line until the prosecutor is fired. Six hours later the prosecutor begins cleaning out his desk and Pence later brags about it in an open forum at the Council on Foreign Relations.
That is exactly what Biden did in Ukraine.
The fired Venezuelan prosecutor then gives an affidavit under oath that Pence had him fired because he was investigating his son’s company and that the U.S. had taken over the country’s prosecutor’s office.
That is exactly what the Ukrainian prosecutor testified.
But none of these facts are in Mayer’s story. In the face of the affidavit and Biden’s open admission on video, she still somehow calls these “baseless tales claiming that Biden corruptly intervened on behalf of his son’s Ukrainian business interests.”
Instead Mayer attacks the reporter who revealed most of them, John Solomon of The Hill. A partisan reporter attacking another partisan reporter is what passes for journalism these days. Being non-partisan—a requirement to practice serious journalism—means looking past the politics of a reporter or a news outlet, and even overlooking their partisan motivation, if they present documented evidence. The motive is irrelevant if the evidence is substantiated.
There was no such evidence in the Russiagate farce, but that never stopped partisans in the Democratic media. The same lack of skepticism has accepted now two CIA officials as “whistleblowers” without questioning their motives, while showing no interest in real whistleblowers who challenge the Establishment on behalf of the nation.
If the Department of Justice and its investigation into the origins of Russiagate is serious and reveals wrongdoing by intelligence officials and by extension by the media, the best move those officials and journalists can make is to go on offense as their best defense. It also gives them another crack at Trump after failing with Russiagate. And Trump gave them the opening to do it.
Trump’s Blunder
Trump’s mistake was to get personally involved in the investigations into the origins of Russiagate and the Bidens. By mentioning both in a telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, he broke the wall that should exist between the White House and the Justice Department. Though there was no clear quid-pro-quo, Trump hinted that he would release military aid to Ukraine in exchange for the investigations. If Trump did that it is the routine corrupt way the U.S. carries out foreign policy, as Biden openly admitted.
Trump compounded his problems by publicly calling for China to investigate Hunter Biden’s dealings in that country. By getting personally involved, instead of leaving it up to the DOJ to investigate his possible challenger in next year’s presidential election, Trump allowed his enemies in intelligence and the media to portray his conversation as an impeachable offense.
Every move the DOJ or Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, makes in investigating Russiagate or the Bidens’ corruption, including legitimately asking foreign governments for assistance, is now tainted as political because of Trump’s unwise intervention. He threw a lifeline to intelligence officers and journalists like Mayer, who will continue to make the most of it even if it means turning their backs on their professional commitments.
Sweden’s hunt for Russian sub 5 years ago got its military more cash, but was based on faulty intelligence, new report says
RT | October 9, 2019
The Swedish Navy’s fruitless hunt for a Russian sub was reportedly based on an inconclusive analysis of intelligence which was overstated under pressure from the government. MPs only learned of it after boosting defense spending.
In October 2014, Sweden was gripped by spy fever. People were watching relentlessly as its military was hunting for an elusive Russian mini-sub off Stockholm. The hunters returned empty-handed, but top brass assured the public that it was not for lack of a foreign intrusion. It took months for Swedish officials to acknowledge that the intercepted “Russian submarine distress signal” that triggered the hunt actually came from a local civilian boat. Though some of the failed hunters insisted otherwise.
Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) says some details of how Sweden got into this embarrassment is yet to be revealed and offered information provided by a military insider. According to its source, the analysis of a sound signature, which was touted as definitive evidence of a submarine presence in Swedish waters, was actually preliminary.
“The criteria for a confirmed submarine are rock hard, and they were not fulfilled,” the insider said, explaining that under regular circumstances the military would not go public with such intelligence at all.
SvD’s source suggests that the Swedish military command had been pressured by both the national government and some of its fellow generals to go along with the narrative. Interestingly, when the evidence was properly reviewed and a classified final report into the hunt was compiled in May 2015, nobody rushed to share the conclusions with the Swedish lawmakers.
Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist allegedly waited until September 2015 before reporting to the Swedish Parliament, SvD noted, which conveniently happened after it approved a hefty $700 million hike in defense spending over five years.
If it looks like a ruse to secure extra funding and stir anti-Russian sentiment in a non-NATO nation and swims like a ruse to secure extra funding and stir anti-Russian sentiment in a non-NATO nation, then it’s probably just an honest mistake. No hard feelings.
Here they go again: Senate reheats ‘Russian meddling’ claims, using assertions as evidence
RT | October 9, 2019
The Senate Intelligence Committee’s final report on ‘Russian interference’ in the 2016 US presidential election is short on evidence and long on reheated assertions and innuendo from ‘experts’ exposed as actual election meddlers.
There is little new in the 85-page, partially redacted document released on Tuesday, that has not been made public by the committee previously – including the accusations that “Russia” focused on stoking anger and resentment among African-Americans, for example.
There is a reason for that. By the committee’s own admission, “much of this Volume’s analysis is derived from” the work of two Technical Advisory Groups (TAG), which produced two public reports back in December 2018, to the same kind of fawning press coverage the report is receiving now.
Not Surprisingly, the report’s “findings” are being cited as conclusive proof that Democrats were right and President Donald Trump was wrong about 2016, Russia, Ukraine and the US presidential election.
The only trouble with that is that the committee provides no actual evidence for any of its claims – only assertions. For example, their description of the Internet Research Agency – the “Russian troll farm” – is basically copied over from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s indictment of a dozen of its alleged members. Yet a federal judge presiding over the case ruled back in May that allegations cannot be treated as established evidence or conclusion, coming close to finding Mueller’s prosecutors in contempt.
Another document presented as evidence is the January 2017 “Intelligence Community Assessment,” the disingenuously named work of a small group of people, hand-picked by the Obama administration’s DNI and chiefs of the CIA, FBI and NSA – all of whom, except for the NSA, have since been implicated in what seems to be a campaign to spy on Trump, delegitimize his presidency, and have him impeached.
The Senate report also quotes testimonies from Obama aides such as Ben Rhodes – helpfully redacted of course – Gen. Philip Breedlove, the NATO commander who tried to set off a war with Russia; professional “Russian bot” hunters like Clint Watts and Thomas Rid; and NATO’s “Strategic Communications Center of Excellence.”
The best part, however, has to be the reliance on New Knowledge, presented as “a cybersecurity company dedicated to protecting the public sphere from disinformation attacks.” In reality, New Knowledge was exposed by the New York Times as the outfit that actually ran bots and disinformation operations during the 2017 Alabama special election for the US Senate, targeting Republican candidate Roy Moore on behalf of Democrats – while blaming Russia!
In an internal memo, New Knowledge executives boasted how they “orchestrated an elaborate ‘false flag’ operation that planted the idea that the Moore campaign was amplified on social media by a Russian botnet.”
The other TAG, led by British academics and researchers, found that the activity of ‘Russian trolls’ increased after the election – by 238 percent on Instagram, 59 percent on Facebook, 52 percent on Twitter, and 84 percent on YouTube. So it was influencing elections… retroactively?
Left unsaid was that the absolute quantity of “Russian” posts was minuscule, a proverbial drop in the bucket compared to the billions of social media posts generated and consumed by the US electorate during the campaign.
These are the people who “significantly informed the Committee’s understanding of Russia’s social media-predicated attack against our democracy,” as this week’s report puts it.
Ever since Hillary Clinton blamed “Russian hackers” for the revelations of corruption within the DNC in July 2016, the Washington establishment has been eager to blame Moscow for all the ills of the US political system, real or imagined. The Senate Intelligence Committee’s report seems to be nothing more than an attempt to reheat the long-cold corpse of a conspiracy that should have been buried with the Mueller Report and allowed to rest in peace.
Investigation: Joseph Mifsud
The_War_Economy – July 29, 2019
Joseph Mifsud, born in 1960, is a bit of a mystery, in the sense that he has numerous connections to organisations such as the European Union, you can find him in multiple locations, but the moment he was connected to the Spygate scenario, everybody just knew him as the Russian who tried to hire George Papadopoulos for nefarious reasons. Even though he is Maltese.
“I am a member of the European Council On Foreign Relations. And you know which is the only Foundation I am a member of? The Clinton Foundation. Between you and me, my thinking is left-leaning. But I predicted Trump’s victory as well as Brexit. Everyone of us wants peace. If the Governments don’t talk to each other, we citizens must keep talking.” — Joseph Mifsud
At unknown points,
Mifsud studied at the University of Malta, which he graduated from in 1982 with a bachelor’s degree in education. Mifsud also graduated from the University of Padua with a degree in pedagogy in 1989, and then in 1995, Mifsud also graduated from Queens University with a master’s degree in philosophy.
Mifsud later studied at the University of Reading, where he earned his doctorate. Mifsud also became fluent in Maltese, French, Italian, Arabic and English, and has knowledge of Spanish, Portuguese, Russian and Slovenian.
In January 1994, Mifsud published the paper “Partners for Change: The Malta experience”.
From 1996 to 1998, Mifsud served in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Malta, and also served as Malta’s representative to the Council of Europe in Education and at Unesco.
In 1997, Mifsud was appointed as the Head of the Department of Education at the University of Malta.
At some point, Mifsud was a member of the Senate. Towards the late 1990s, Mifsud encountered Manual Delia.
Mifsud has also served as an adviser to the European Union, the European Union Parliament, the Parliament of Malta, organisations in Italy, Spain, Africa, and the Commonwealth Law Bulletin.
On May 1, 2004, Malta officially joined the European Union. Around this time, Mifsud was placed in charge of establishing the European Programmes Unit, and also helped during the negotiations of Malta’s entry into the organisation.
In 2006, Mifsud taught a summer class with Katerina Galanaki, which was attended by Matthew Caruana Galizia, the son of Daphne Caruana Galizia.
From October 1, 2006 to August 30, 2007, Mifsud served as the Head of the Private Secretariat for Dr. Michael Frendo.
On November 15, 2007, Mifsud received a letter from the University of Malta, as an audit done by PriceWaterhouseCoopers suggested that he had mismanaged funds during his time teaching.
The next month, in December 2007, Mifsud left his position at the University of Malta.
On April 9, 2008, the Bank of Valetta won an order and garnished Mifsud’s wages.
On June 9, 2008, the Paris Summit established EMUNI and Euro-Mediterranean higher education.
In November 2008, Mifsud was elected as the first President of the Euro-Mediterranean University (EMUNI) in Slovenia by European and Mediterranean, Rectors and Presidents of Universities. During this time, Mifsud also helped pioneer the Euro-Mediterranean Professional School.
On November 26, 2008, the University’s General Assembly meeting was held in Barcelona, Spain, where 115 members from 32 states adopted the Universidy statute and elected the institutional bodies.
In February 2009, EMUNI University officially became a legal entity in Slovenia.
By April 2009, Mifsud was the representative of Malta on the board of the Bologna Follow-up Group, the Erasmus Mundus Committee and the Tempus Committee, Malta’s Socrates Sub-Committee For Higher- Education and the “Joint Research Center” of the European Commission.
On April 22, 2009, Ian Mundell published the article “Bridging the Mediterranean” in Politico, which featured an interview with Mifsud.
Between June 21–22, 2009, Mifusd and Strobe Talbott attended “G8 and Beyond”, which was convened by the Brookings Institution, Aspen, Club de Madrid and Link Campus.
On June 30, 2009, Mifsud attended the “Seminar On Higher Education In Europe”, hosted by the Foundation For European Progressive Studies.
Mifsud would later leave his position as the President of the Euro-Mediterranean University.
Mifsud may be one of the founders — alongside Giovanni D’Angelo and Giuseppe Picone — of the Mesauro Foundation.
On March 24, 2010, Mifsud attended the “Workshop Multi-Level Governance of Intercultural Dialogue” hosted by the Università di Padova.
On June 14, 2010, Mifsud gave the opening address at the 2nd EMUNI Research Souk — the Euro-Mediterranean Student Research Multi-Conference — hosted by the EMUNI University.
On June 29, 2010, Mifsud met with Secretary General of the Union for the Mediterranean Ahmad Masa’deh at the Headquarters of the Secretairat in the Palacio Real de Pedralbes in Barcelona, Spain.
Between October 20–23, 2010, Mifsud attended the EUA Annual Conference in Palermo, Italy, where he held talks with representatives of EMUNI partner institutions.
On October 24, 2010, Mifsud participated as part of the round table session on Teaching and Learning Diplomacy as part of the Rome Diplomatic Festival, which was attended by others including Nabil Ayad.
Between December 11–13, 2011, Mifsud attended the 4th Global UN Alliance of Civilizations Forum in Doha.
In 2012, Mifsud became the Director of the London Academy of Diplomacy, which is affiliated with Scotland’s University of Stirling, as he left the Euro-Mediterranean University. The same year, the London Academy of Diplomacy received the award “Diplomat of the Year” from Diplomat Magazine. At some point during this, Mifsud also joined the Leading Board for the Albanian Diplomatic Academy.
Simona Mangiante was also introduced to Mifsud during this time by Gianni Pittella while she worked in Brussels as an attorney specialised in child abduction cases.
“I always saw Mifsud with Pittella.” — Simona Mangiante
At the same, Simona worked for Mairead McGuinness and Roberta Angelilli, and she worked as an administrator to the Home Affairs Committee under Martin Schulz.
The London Academy of Diplomacy has a total of 36 faculty members, which includes former diplomats. In September and January each year, students are accepted, with the total usually amounting to 150 new students. The London Academy of Diplomacy is also open to organising visits to the Houses of Parliament, the Commonwealth Secretariat, numerous organisations in London, the Hague, the European Parliament, NATO, the European Union Headquarters and the United Nations.
In the summer of 2012, the London Academy of Diplomacy established cooperation with the Faculty of Global Processes of Moscow State University.
In October 2012, Mifsud met with Enzo Scotti — the President of Link University — Professor Nabil Ayad, Professor Claire Smith and numerous Italian Generals for a training programme on international security, which was arranged by Link Campus University and the London Academy of Diplomacy in Rome, Italy.
In 2012, Mifsud attended Globalistics 2013 at Moscow University, where he suggested that Moscow University join a project to reform Link Campus University in Rome.
In March 2013, Mifsud owed roughly EUR 39,000.00 to the EMUNI University in Slovenia for expenses claimed during his tenure.
On April 3, 2013, Mifsud and Thomas Childs attended the Global Economic Forum: Best Practices in Trade and Investment Promotion in London, which was hosted by the International Business & Diplomatic Exchange (IBDE).
On May 15, 2013, Inverhold Ltd. was founded by Dr. Stephan Roh in London, England.
Between June 11–13, 2013, Mifsud and Nabil Ayad attended the “Global, Regional and National Actors in the Governace of the Atom: A Focus on Europe and the Middle East” international conference at the Academy of Global Governance in Florence, Italy. They presided over a simulation exercise, which was assisted by visiting professor of the London Academy of Diplomacy, Sameh Aoul Enein.
On July 2, 2013, His Excellency Dr. Sultan Al Jaber visited the London Academy of Diplomacy to discuss cooperation between the organisation and the United Arab Emirates, which was attended by Mifsud, Nabil Ayad and Riad Nourallah.
In August 2013, Mifsud received an honorary professorship from the University of East Anglia.
In 2014, the Rome Academy of Diplomacy was founded, and Mifsud played a vital role to its development. Dr. Stephan Roh also became a visiting lecturer at the London Academy of Diplomacy, and bought Link Campus University. In return, Mifsud became a consultant at Roh’s legal firm.
Also in 2014, a Russian intern named Natalia Kutepova-Jamrom visited his office after having worked in the Russian Government as a legislative aide, and she later introduced Mifsud to numerous Russian diplomats and scholars, and secured an invitation to the Valdai Discussion Club.
In January 2014, the University of East Anglia ended their arrangement to validate London Academy of Diplomacy degree courses, with the arrangement then transferred to the University of Stirling.
Between April 24–2015, 2014, Mifsud attended the Global University Summit in Moscow, Russia.
On May 29, 2014, Mifsud met with Ambassador Alexander Yakovenko at the Residence, where Mifsud presented his views on the aftermath of the Global University Summit, and discussed UK-Russia relations.
In mid-November 2014, Mifsud visited Washington, DC, where he attended a lecture at the American University on “Diplomacy and Development in a Global Environment”, which was sponsored by Australia’s Program On International Organizations, Law and Diplomacy. During this time, Mifsud spoke with The Washington Diplomat’s Larry Luxner.
On December 8, 2014, Larry Luxner published the article Maltese Official Raises Profile Of U.K. Diplomacy Academy” in The Washington Diplomat.
On February 23, 2015, Mifsud and Falah Mustafa gave a lecture at the London Academy of Diplomacy about the Islamic State and the future of Kurdistan and Iraq.
On March 12, 2015, the London Academy of Diplomacy hosted the panel “Diplomacy and Social Media”, which was attended by Mifsud, Christian Sys, Sir George Reid and Dr. Martyn Bond.
On April 30, 2015, Euripides Evriviades hosted the conversation “Cyprus, the EU and the Eastern Mediterranean” at the London Academy of Diplomacy, which was introduced by Mifsud.
Between September 8–10, 2015, the XXV Economic Forum was hosted in Krynica-Zdrój, Poland, which was attended by Mifsud on the third day.
On September 11, 2015, Mifsud attended the Senate of the Republic in Piazza della Minerva, Rome, with others including Vincenzo Scotti and Gianni Pittella.
In late October 2015, Mifsud proposed to Anna at a restaurant which overlooked the Kremlin in Moscow during Anna’s sister’s birthday.
On December 8, 2015, Ben Carson announced his foreign policy adviser team, which included both George Birnbaum and George Papadopoulos.
In 2016, Simona’s contract came to an end. As such, Pissetti suggested employment with Mifsud in London, which led to Mifsud offering her a job at the London Centre of International Law Practice, located at Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Simona was promised £2,500.00 per month from a colleague of Mifsud.
On January 29, 2016, Mifsud sent an e-mail to Anna, where he requested the engagement ring and assorted items to be returned to his Rome or United Kingdom address due to Anna cheating on him.
On March 6, 2016, George Papadopoulos learned that he would become a foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign.
Between March 8–9, 2016, Mifsud attended the World Summit On Uncontrolled Migration at the Adelaide Convention Centre in South Australia.
On March 10, 2016, Mifsud hosted a breakfast on behalf of Access European Universities in Adelaide, Australia.
On March 14, 2016, in Italy, Mifsud met with George Papadopoulos, and although initially distant in the conversation, Mifsud became more interested when he learned that Papadopoulos had joined the Trump campaign.
On March 21, 2016, Donald Trump visited the The Washington Post’s headquarters, where he introduced his foreign policy team — including Papadopoulos — to the editorial board.
A few days later, on March 24, 2016, Olga Polonskaya (neé Vinogradova) met and discussed with Mifsud the possibility of an internship. Shortly after this, Papadopoulos met with both Mifsud and Polonskaya, who Mifsud introduced as President Vladimir Putin’s niece, at a café in London. Mifsud also offered to introduce Papadopoulos to the Russian Ambassador in London, Alexander Yakovenko.
“Mifsud underlines that he and Papadopoulos met three or four times overall. ‘He came here in Italy, in Rome, with seven other experts of international relations working for the London Centre of International Law Practice. We were dining and, if I remember well, he announced that we would join Trump’s electoral campaign team. After that, we kept in touch via email or when we subsequently met in person. But, let’s be clear: the Russians didn’t ask me to meet Papadopoulos. Mr. Papadopoulos asked me for contacts in several areas: I proposed someone in the Arabian Gulf, then in Latin America, a hot issue for Trump after his remarks on the wall at the border with Mexico, then in Russia and the European Council. They chose Russia as they were interested in sanctions against Moscow, NATO, Ukraine and a more stable relationship with Russia. A topic very sensitive also for the Russians.’” — Repubblica
After the meeting, Polonskaya texted her brother, Sergei Vinogradov, about the meeting, as she had understood half of the conversation. The text message read: “Because my English was bad”.
Elsewhere, Papadopoulos sent an e-mail to seven members of the Trump campaign in an attempt to arrange a meeting between the campaign and the Russians, with the title of the e-mail being “Meeting with Russian Leadership — Including Putin”, which also discussed his meeting with Mifsud. The proposal was dismissed by the campaign, with concerns raised by Sam Clovis and Charles Kubic.
On March 31, 2016, Papadopoulos attended a national security meeting in Washington, DC with the foreign policy advisers of the Trump campaign and Trump himself. As he introduced himself, he mentioned connections which may assist in arranging a meeting between Trump and President Putin.
Around April 2016, Mifsud was hired on a part-time basis at the University of Stirling.
On April 10, 2016, Papadopoulos sent an e-mail to Polonskaya.
The next day, on April 11, 2016, Polonskaya responded to Papadopoulos’s e-mail, where she suggested she would help build relations between the United States and Russia, which led to a discussion between Papadopoulos, Polonskaya and Mifsud about arranging a foreign policy trip to Russia.
JOSEPH MIFSUD: “This is already been agreed. I am flying to Moscow on the 18th for a Valdai meeting, plus other meetings at the Duma.”
OLGA POLONSKAYA: “I have already alerted my personal links to our conversation and your request… 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.” — The Indictment of George Papadopoulos
On April 13, 2016, Mifsud and Sir George Reid hosted a public talk titled “Controlled or uncontrolled migration — a fortress EU or a global response?” at the University of Stirling.
On April 18, 2016, Mifsud introduced Papadopoulos via e-mail to Ivan Timofeev. Timofeev then said he had connections to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This led to numerous Skype conversations between both Papadopoulos and Timofeev.
“At some point, he started asking whether it would be possible to set up a meeting between Trump and Putin ‘or some other high-ranking Russian politicians.’ Our conversations made it clear that George was not well acquainted with the Russian foreign political landscape. You obviously can’t just go and set up a meeting with the president, for instance. Things just aren’t done that way.” — Ivan Timofeev, August 21, 2017
On April 19, 2016, Mifsud attended a discussion at the Valdai Club, moderated by Ivan Timofeev, with other attendees including Stephan Roh and Igor Tomberg.
On April 22, 2016, Timofeev e-mailed Papadopoulos and thanked him for their talk, and suggested that they meet in either London or Moscow — Papadopoulos suggested a meeting in London between the two of them and Mifsud.
On April 25, 2016, Papadopoulos e-mailed Stephen Miller, where he again pushed for the idea of a meeting between Trump and President Putin.
On April 26, 2016, Mifsud and Papadopoulos met with each other again at a hotel in London, where Mifsud mentioned that he had returned from Moscow and a meeting with Russian Government officials, during which he learned of the existence of dirt on Hillary Clinton held by the Russians.
“They have dirt on her.”
“The Russians had emails of Clinton.”
“They have thousands of emails.” — The Indictment of George Papadopoulos“Roh claims that Mifsud has done nothing wrong and was set up — and denies having ever told Papadopoulos the Russians had dirt on Clinton.” — BuzzFeed News
“Ok. But what about the emails stolen from Mrs. Clinton? ‘The dirty job’ offered to Papadopoulos? ‘I don’t know. I strongly deny any discussion of mine about secrets concerning Hillary Clinton. I swear it on my daughter. I don’t know anyone belonging to the Russian government: the only Russian I know is Ivan Timofeev, director of the think tank ‘Russian International Affairs Council’. Which is based at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. ‘But this is meaningless’, Mifsud says.” — Repubblica
On April 27, 2016, Papadopoulos e-mailed both Miller and a high-ranking official separately at the Trump campaign, where he again pushed for a trip to Moscow.
On April 30, 2016, Papadopoulos sent an e-mail to Mifsud and thanked him for his assistance in potentially arranging a meeting between the Trump campaign and the Russian Government.
On May 4, 2016, Timofeev sent an e-mail to both Papadopoulos and Mifsud, where he said the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs were open to cooperation, and that Papadopoulos should meet with the North America Desk when he is next in Moscow. Papadopoulos then forwarded the e-mail chain to the high-ranking campaign official for guidance.
On May 5, 2016, Papadopoulos had a phone call with Clovis, and then forwarded the same e-mail chain to him.
On May 13, 2016, Mifsud e-mailed Papadopoulos with an update on their recent conversations.
“We will continue to liaise through you with the Russian counterparts in terms of what is needed for a high level meeting of Mr. Trump with the Russian Federation.” — Joseph Mifsud
The next day, on May 14, 2016, Papadopolous e-mailed the high-ranking campaign official and said that the Russian Government was open to hosting Trump in Russia.
On May 21, 2016, Papadopoulos e-mailed another high-ranking Trump campaign official, which had the subject line “Request from Russia to meet Mr. Trump”, which included the May 4, 2016 e-mail chain.
Between May 21–23, 2016, Mifsud attended the 16th Doha Forum in Qatar, where he represented the London Academy of Diplomacy. The event was also attended by Tobias Ellwood, MP.
On June 1, 2016, Papadopoulos e-mailed the high-ranking Trump campaign official, who then redirected him to the campaign supervisor. Papadopoulos then e-mailed the campaign supervisor about the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs seeking a meeting with Trump, and whether or not he should ignore it.
On June 19, 2016, Papadopoulos e-mailed the high-ranking Trump campaign official again, as Timofeev had suggested to him that a campaign representative could go to Moscow instead to attend the meetings instead of Trump himself.
On June 28, 2016, Mifsud and Soros were two of the signatories of “‘The world will not stop’: a statement from leading Europeans” released by the European Council On Foreign Relations, which was about the Brexit vote.
In July 2016, Mifsud lost his honorary professorship from the University of East Anglia.
On July 21, 2016, Mifsud attended the graduation of students from the London Academy of Diplomacy.
On August 15, 2016, the campaign supervisor sent an e-mail to Papadopoulos and said that he and another foreign policy adviser should visit Moscow and accept the trip offer from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In September 2016, Simona started to work at the London Centre of International Law Practice, where she received a LinkedIn message from George Papadopoulos, who liked her photograph and noted that they have connections to the same place of employment, followed by an attempt to arrange a meeting with her, which fell through.
In late October 2016, Simona sent an e-mail to Mifsud, where she complained about her employment and how she had been ‘working for nothing’ as she was paying rent on her flat in South Kensington using savings.
On October 27, 2016, Mifsud attended the “International Law and the Territorial Gains and Losses of Non-State Armed Groups in Africa and the Middle East” discussion at Gray’s Inn, which was hosted by the London Centre of International Law Practice.
On October 29, 2016, at 01:30 A.M., Mifsud responded to Simona from his Stirling University e-mail address in Italian from London, having returned from Moscow.
“Dear Simona,
I hope you are fine… I was in Moscow… Now I’m in London. Can we meet in person? I’m here until Tuesday night.
A hug.
J” — The Guardian
On October 31, 2016, Mifsud left London.
In November 2016, Simona quit her position at the London Centre of International Law Practice, having received zero pay. Her work iPhone stopped working afterwards.
On November 14, 2016, Mifsud, Stephan Roh and Nagi Idris attended the “Military Coup Attempt In Turkey and Its Reflections Worldwide” conference, which was hosted by EURAS at Istanbul Aydin University.
In late 2016, Mifsud disappeared from a venture between Link Campus University and Moscow State University.
In 2017, Mifsud remained in touch with Yury Sayamov.
On January 27, 2017, George was interviewed by agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, where he was asked about his interactions with Mifsud.
At the start of February 2017, the Federal Bureau of Investigation found Mifsud in Washington, DC.
Between February 8–11, 2017, Mifsud attended Global Ties’ Unity In Community national meeting at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC, a non-profit organisation with a working relationship with the United States Department of State.
On February 11, 2017, Mifsud sent an e-mail about his conversations with Papadopoulos to agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and then left Washington, DC.
On February 16, 2017, the Federal Bureau of Investigation interviewed Papadopoulos again, this time with Papadopoulos’s counsel present. Papadopoulos offered to cooperate with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The next day, on February 17, 2017, Papadopoulos deleted his Facebook account, and then recreated a brand new version of it.
On February 23, 2017, Papadopoulos also changed his contact number.
In March 2017, George and Simona met each other in New York, where they started to date each other.
On March 20, 2017, Mifsud sent a text to Anna to inform her that he would chair a meeting in Saudi Arabia on international security.
The next day, on March 21, 2017, Mifsud sent a photograph to Anna of buildings in Saudi Arabia which showed the flags of the United States and Saudi Arabia.
In April 2017, the London Academy of Diplomacy seemingly closed down.
“Today, there is no sign of the London Academy of Diplomacy on Middlesex Street in London. Phone numbers for the organisation that can be found online do not work and websites lead to error messages. A receptionist at the address said the organisation left the premises six months ago.” — Carole Cadwalladr, The Guardian, October 31, 2017
In early April 2017, Mifsud and Anna met with each other in Kiev, Ukraine, where Mifsud informed Anna that he had been questioned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
In May 2017, Mifsud started to work as a full-time professional teaching fellow in the politics department at the University of Stirling.
Between May 8–9, 2017, Mifsud attended the G7 International Forum about “Globalization, Inclusion and Sustainability In a Global Century” in Rome, Italy, hosted by Link University Campus and Fondazione Economia Tor Vergata.
On May 12, 2017, Mifsud, Dr. Roh, Vladimir Likhachev and Timofeev held a presentation on the international report “GLOBAL ENERGY 2015–2016”, which was hosted by the Russian International Affairs Council.
The day after, on May 13, 2017, Mifsud and Anna texted each other, where Mifsud accused her of cheating on him after Anna discovered that she was pregnant.
On May 14, 2017, Mifsud and Anna continued to text each other, where Mifsud had moved to celebrate Anna’s pregnancy.
After May 18, 2017, Timofeev was stopped at an airport in the United States by Team Mueller, where he was questioned about his interactions with Papadopoulos.
On May 21, 2017, Mifsud and Secretary Ashton Carter attended the Riyadh Forum On Countering Extremism and Fighting Terrorism in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Between June 26–27, 2017, Mifsud and George Soros attended the annual council meeting for the European Council On Foreign Affairs in Berlin, Germany.
On July 10, 2017, Mifsud met with Ernest Chernukhin, a representative of the Russian Embassy in London.
On July 27, 2017, Papadopoulos was arrested at Dulles International Airport upon his arrival.
In August 2017, Mifsud e-mailed The Washington Post and stated that he had no contact or history with the Russian Government.
On August 21, 2017, Timofeev was interviewed by Gazeta about his involvement with the 2016 presidential election.
Around the start of September 2017, Polonskaya contacted Prasenjit Kumar Singh after they had met at Link Campus University, where she requested for the two of them to meet. Singh and Polonskaya then met to discuss the translation of Singh’s website for the London Executive School from English into Russian, which Polonskaya then proceeded to do.
On September 29, 2017, Mifsud and Anna texted each other about Anna’s pregnancy and Mifsud’s failing health and triple bypass.
In October 2017, BuzzFeed News contacted Anna in Kiev, Ukraine, but she refused to discuss her relationship with Mifsud.
On October 5, 2017, George Papadopoulos pleaded guilty for lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. At the same time, Simona Mangiante received a visit from an agent of Team Mueller while at George’s family home in Chicago, where he served a subpoena signed by Aaron Zelinsky. Later, she visited the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Chicago Field Office, which led to a 2-and-a-half hour interrogation by the agent that served the subpoena and a female agent.
“Among other things she would not discuss with the Guardian, the FBI was interested in her relationship with Papadopoulos. Was it genuine? ‘They asked: ‘Do you love him?’ I replied: ‘yes’. They replied: ‘He [Papadopoulos] is lucky’.’” — The Guardian
On October 19, 2017, Mifsud attended a fundraising dinner in Reading West, which was also attended by Alok Sharma and Boris Johnson, who was a guest speaker at the event. During this time, Mifsud met with both Sharma and Johnson, as Mifsud had planned to speak with Johnson about Brexit. Mifsud when then photographed with Johnson and Prasenjit Kumar Singh.
On October 27, 2017, Mifsud and Anna texted each other about Mifsud’s failing health.
On October 30, 2017, Rosalind S. Helderman and Carol D. Leonnig — with contributions from Tom Hamburger — published the article “Trump campaign adviser admitted to lying about Russian contacts” in The Washington Post.
On October 31, 2017, Stephanie Kirchgaessner, Claire Phipps and Kevin Rawlinson published the article “Joseph Mifsud: more questions than answers about mystery professor linked to Russia” in The Guardian. Anna also texted Mifsud and informed him that Alberto Nardelli had reached out to her to discuss her relationship with him.
ANNA: “Hello” 14:25
ANNA: “Someone from London journalist asks about you.” 14:26
JOSEPH MIFSUD: “Do not reply please” 15:23
ANNA: “so you do not get sick? and you were in Rome 2 days ago?” 16:58 — BuzzFeed News
The same day, Robert Mendick, Alec Luhn and Ben Riley-Smith published the article “Revealed: London professor at centre of Trump-Russia collusion inquiry says: ‘I have clear conscience’” in The Telegraph.
In November 2017, Mifsud disappeared from the public eye.
On November 1, 2017, Paolo G. Brera published the article “Russiagate, mystery professor Joseph Mifsud speaks out: ‘Dirt on Hillary Clinton? Nonsense’” in Repubblica.
On November 2, 2017, Mifsud stopped arriving at Link Campus University in Rome, having taken the advice of a colleague, Vincenzo Scotti, to relocate elsewhere in Italy.
On November 4, 2017, Carole Cadwalladr and Michael Savage published the article “Boris Johnson in spotlight as questions raised over Russian influence on UK” in The Guardian.
On November 9, 2017, Ali Watkins — with contributions from Josh Meyer and Naomi O’Leary — published the article “Mysterious Putin ‘niece’ has a name” in Politico.
On November 10, 2017, Sharon LaFraniere, David D. Kirkpatrick, Andrew Higgins and Michael Schwirtz — with contributions from Iliana Magra and Matt Apuzzo — published the article “A London Meeting of an Unlikely Group: How a Trump Adviser Came to Learn of Clinton ‘Dirt’” in The New York Times.
The same day, Tim Lister and Nic Robertson — with contributions from Frederick Pleitgen, Mary Ilyushina and Carol Jordan — published the article “Academic at heart of Clinton ‘dirt’ claim vanishes, leaving trail of questions” in CNN.
On November 11, 2017, Carole Cadwalladr published the article “Boris Johnson met ‘London professor’ linked to FBI’s Russia investigation” in The Guardian.
On November 23, 2017, Mifsud resigned from his position at the University of Stirling.
On January 1, 2018, Alberto Nardelli published the article “The Bio Of The Professor At The Center Of The Trump-Russia Probe Has DIsappeared From His University’s Website” in BuzzFeed News.
In October 2018, Dr. Roh sent a photograph of Mifsud, taken on May 21, 2018, to BuzzFeed News and The Associated Press, among many other organisations.
On November 12, 2018, Dr. Roh sent an e-mail to BuzzFeed News, where he informed the organisation that they were attempting to arrange a testimonial in front of the United States Senate for Mifsud.
On November 13, 2018, Alberto Nardelli published the article “Joseph Mifsud Wants To Testify Before The Senate, A Lawyer Claims” in BuzzFeed News.
In early 2018, Timofeev met with reporters from CNN in his Moscow office, where they discussed Papadopoulos and Mifsud’s meetings, and his own communications with Papadopoulos.
In January 2018, Simona met with Luke Harding and Stephanie Kirchgaessner of The Guardian, where they interviewed her about her visit from Team Mueller in October 2017.
On January 18, 2018, Luke Harding and Stephanie Kirchgaessner published the article “The boss, the boyfriend and the FBI: the Italian woman in the eye of the Trump-Russia inquiry” in The Guardian.
On February 10, 2018, the editorial board for Agrigento Notizie published the article “‘Unjustified compensation and damage to revenue’, sued ex presidents of the Cupa for trial”, which discussion Italy’s Prosecutor’s Office of the Court of Auditors suing Giuseppe Vella, Mifsud and Maria Immordino, with a court hearing scheduled for July 11, 2018.
On February 27, 2018, Alberto Nardelli published the article “The Professor At The Center Of The Trump-Russia Probe Boasted To His Girlfriend In Ukraine That He Was Friends With Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov” in BuzzFeed News.
On March 2, 2018, Alberto Nardelli published the article “Even Italian Prosecutors Can’t Find The Professor At The Center Of The Trump-Russia Probe” in BuzzFeed News.
On March 21, 2018, John Sweeney and Innes Bowen published the article “Joseph Mifsud: The mystery professor behind Trump Russia inquiry” in BBC News.
On April 18, 2018, Dr. Roh and Thierry Pastor released the book “The Faking of Russia-Gate: The Papadopoulos Case”.
On April 23, 2018, Inverhold Ltd.’s name was changed to The No Vichok Ltd. by Dr. Roh.
On May 21, 2018, Dr. Roh took a photograph of Mifsud in Roh’s office in Zurich, Switzerland using an iPhone.
On June 7, 2018, Marshall Cohen — with contributions from Mary Ilyushina and Tim Lister — published the article “‘Unprofessional’ Papadopoulos couldn’t deliver on promises, his Russian contact says” in CNN.
In August 2018, a reporter from The Associated Press visited Malta in an attempt to track down information about Mifsud and his whereabouts.
On August 13, 2018, a reporter from The Associated Press visited the home of Mifsud’s wife, Janet, who retreated into her home upon realising that the reporter was from the media.
On August 14, 2018, Janet sent an e-mail to the reporter from The Associated Press, where she stated that she had nothing to comment about.
On September 19, 2018, Janet filed for divorce from Mifsud.
On October 22, 2018, Raphael Satter — with contributions from Angela Charlton and Chris Mangion — published the article “Malta academic in Trump probe has history of vanishing acts” in The Associated Press.
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A low-fat, high-carb diet has been the largest public health experiment in history. It’s past time for a rethink.
By Malcolm Kendrick | RT | November 25, 2020
New research suggests that four billion people globally will be overweight in 2050. This trend can be traced back to the ‘low-fat, high-carb’ guidelines first issued in the 70s, and should prompt a major U-turn on dietary advice.
A recent report from the Potsdam Institute predicts that by 2050 there will be four billion overweight people in the world, with one-and-a-half billion of them obese. This is not entirely surprising. The world has been getting fatter for years, and things do not seem to be slowing down.
Why is this happening? … continue
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