2 Mar 2016: “Walter Mitty” character – George Demetrios Papadopoulos yearned for political stardom – The FBI provided the opportunity
Born in Chicago, he graduated from DePaul University in 2009 with a degree in political science and government.
Richard Farkas, a Russian politics professor at the University, on discovering that his former student was one of Trump’s few foreign policy advisers said: “he studied for a bachelor’s degree in political science. All the classes I taught during my tenure would’ve centred on Russia. His expertise was virtually non-existent. It was thin and embellished. Lots of young people, when they aspire to get close to a campaign, exaggerate their experience. George did that in spades and it was the talk of the department here. I’ve been really generally embarrassed by the fact that I don’t have a lot to share, my classes were 20 to 25 and he was invisible even in a class that size.”
After graduating, he enrolled at, “University College, London School of Public Policy” where in 2010 he gained a “Masters of Science” degree in security studies. Returning to the US he was employed by the Hudson (right wing think tank) Institute, first as an unpaid intern then as a research assistant to a senior fellow at the institute from 2011-2014.
In November 2015 there was a terrorist attack on Paris, France and in the days following every Republican presidential candidate began frantically scrambling to hire experts to bulk up their campaign’s foreign policy credentials. All of the of the Republican foreign policy establishment was working for the front runners, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio.
Barry Bennett, Campaign Manager, for Republican candidate, Ben Carson recalled: “It was utter and total desperation to find people.” So when a resume from an unknown young man named George Papadopoulos arrived, unsolicited, at the Carson campaign headquarters, Bennett gave it more attention than it deserved and hired him.
Papadopoulos brief period as an advisor to the Carson campaign passed without note. Armstrong Williams, who served in various roles in Carson’s campaign, said: “After the Paris terrorist attack, Barry Bennett and his deputy Lisa Coen thought we had to have substance so they had this hiring spree, employing all these people to show we had foreign policy experts, Papadopoulos was one of those people.” He was paid $8,500 for his work in December 2015 and January 2016, and then received only a partial salary, $2,125, in February, when he left the campaign.
Bennett resigned from the campaign in December 2015 and within two months, most of those he had hired were let go due to restructuring and cuts. No one in the Carson campaign remembers much about Papadopoulos, perhaps in part because he worked remotely from Chicago, Bennett said. “If there was any work output, I never saw it.
05 Mar 2016: George Papadopoulos joins the Trump campaign
Up to “Super Tuesday,” 1 March 2016, the Trump campaign had been a largely family affair with little external input or support from the Republican Party and he was lagging in the polls.
But when the swingometer shifted in Trump’s favour there was a realization that “Team Trump” was devoid of competent foreign policy advisors and this generated an urgent scramble to compile a legitimate list of experienced people as the media and those in political circles kept pressuring the campaign to release names.
According to Trump campaign spokesman, Sam Clovis, then a policy advisor, he urgently put together a “team” (including Papadopoulos) so that Trump could release names in an attempt to “at least shut up” the critics.
During the campaign, Clovis defended the team he had compiled for Trump, saying that “these are people who work for a living” who have “real world” experience, and that “if you’re looking for show ponies, you’re coming to the wrong stable.”
But to this day, some senior staff in the Trump White House blame Clovis for recruiting staff without due diligence, saddling Trump with the incompetent Papadopoulos.
08 Mar 2016: Opportunist Professor Mifsud offers Papadopolous access to Putin
Mifsud’s interest was sparked after being told by Papadopolous, who was then living in London, that he had been appointed to the Trump campaign team as an advisor. They met in Italy on 14 March 2016 and again in London 24 March 2017. At the second meeting Mifsud was accompanied by a woman who, according to Papadopolous, was introduced to him as Olga Vinogradova a relative of Vladimir Putin. Following the meeting Papadopolous emailed Trump campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski advising that he had discussed with Olga Vinogradova the possibility of arranging; “a meeting between Trump’s campaign team and the Russian leadership to discuss US – Russia ties under President Trump.”
Lewandowski told him he had done “great work” and to keep them informed. Around a week after Papadopolous attended a campaign team meeting in Washington at which he touted his connections and proposed a meeting between Trump and Russian President Putin. Jeff Sessions dismissed the proposal “out of hand” declaring it to be a non-starter.
But, by 11 April, 2016, ignoring the Session’s directive, Papadopolous, Mifsud and Vinogradova had established an email chain in which Papadopolous continued to seek a meeting for himself in Russia to discuss foreign policy. To which Mifsud had replied; “This is already been agreed. I am flying to Moscow on the 19th of April for a Valdai meeting, plus other meetings at the Duma.”
Papadopolous next met with Mifsud for breakfast and a briefing at a London hotel on 26 April, 2016 at which Mifsud, told Papadopolous he had learned that the “Russians had obtained ‘dirt’ on then-candidate Clinton” in the form of “emails of Clinton… they have thousands of emails.” It is not clear which tranche of Clinton’s emails Mifsud was referring to but in the month of April 2016, a hacker group known as “Fancy Bear” had breached the network defences of the “Democratic National Committee”, a fact not released to the public in the US until 22 July 2016. Mifsud’s info provision had to have been obtained at the time he was in Russia!!!
So there were 2 hacking incidents. WikiLeaks, who denied any connection with the Russian government, had, on 16 March, 2016 already published a searchable archive of Clinton emails from her private server obtained, the group explained, through the “Freedom of Information Act”.
Papadopolous believed the new information would be valuable to the Trump campaign and he submitted a second “meet the Russian’s” proposal to the Trump campaign team leaders. Which was dismissed. A few days later Olga Vinogradova emailed Papadopoulos; “we are all very excited by the possibility of a good relationship with Mr. Trump. The Russian federation would love to welcome him but only once his candidature is officially announced.” Papadopoulos emailed Mifsud on 30 April 2016: “it’s history making if it happens,” thanking him for his: “critical help.”
Mifsud was catfishing the inept Papadopoulos who loved the intrigue
A few weeks after, a contact, allegedly Ivan Timofeev, the Programme Director of the Valdai Club Foundation Council, spoke with Papadopoulos over Skype about laying the groundwork for a meeting between the Trump campaign team and officials in Moscow.
Ever keen Papadopoulos persistently emailed members of Team Trump seeking authority reach out to individuals he believed had high-level Russian government connections and able to provide the campaign with damaging information about Hillary Clinton.
In August 2016, at a meeting in Washington, DC, he told the team his connections that could help arrange a meeting between then-presidential candidate Trump and President Putin.
Paul Manafort and Sam Clovis praised Papadopoulos work ethic, but a wary Manfort advised it would be inappropriate for Trump to attend any meetings. He then sent an email to associate Rick Gates firmly rejecting the idea of Trump making a trip to Russia. Saying; “We need someone to communicate forcefully that DT will not be doing any trips or meetings with Putin. It should be someone low level in the campaign so as not to send the wrong signal.”
Months passed but the “history making” meeting was never convened. Papadopoulos had been catfished and conned
Jumping around a bit
The meeting in a hotel in Italy in March 2016 between Mifsud and Papadopoulos was between associates, not a first time meet as claimed by the FBI. Mifsud served as convenor and Director for “International Strategic Development” in the London Centre for International Law Practice (LCILP) in 2016. and the LCILP’s director for “International Environment, Energy and Natural Resources Law” from February to April 2016 was George Papadopoulos.
Federal prosecutors alleged that Papadopoulos hoped that Putin’s “niece” would introduce him to the Russian ambassador in London. A spurious allegation since Putin does not have one. Information that could have been found in less than a minute through a “Google” enquiry.
The woman, identified as, Olga Vinogradova, was described by Mifsud as “just a student, but a very good-looking one, and Papadopoulos’s interest in her was very different from an academic one.” Later revelations revealed “Olga Vinogradova,” to be a 32 year old graduate from St. Petersburg Polytechnic University.
Now a wine company manager, (married name) Olga Polonskaya, she lives in St Petersburg and is one of a dozen Russian women listed as friends on Facebook with catfisher, Mifsud.
Polonskaya’s brother, Sergei Vinogradov, told the press that she had never worked for the Russian government, and had been introduced to Papadopoulos having previously met with Mifsud to discuss a promised internship.
Her English was poor and at the meeting on 24 March 2016, she was not able to fully follow the conversation between Papadopoulos and Mifsud. He added: “it’s totally ridiculous, She’s not interested in politics. She can barely tell the difference between Lenin and Stalin.”
But the affidavit filed together with his guilty plea indicated Polonskaya had participated in the catfishing of Papadopolous allegedly emailing; “I have already alerted my personal links to our conversation and your request for a foreign policy trip to Russia.”
Papadopoulos became attached to Mifsud: “because, among other reasons, the professor claimed to have substantial connections with Russian government officials, and he thought the relationship would increase his importance as a policy advisor to the campaign.”
The offer of 26 April, 2016, passed to Papadopoulos by Mifsud to “dish the dirt” on Clinton through the provision of emails, allegedly from from the Russian’s was useless since Wikipedia had already published the information 16 March 2016.
caltonjock 