A column in National Review inspired this realization. Here's the subhead:
The State Department and an Australian diplomat grossly exaggerated Papadopoulos's claims - which were probably false anyway.
The author makes such leaps of assumption. Papadopoulos didn't know about the DNC hacked emails (true) and didn't know about any emails (a big leap). Mifsud didn't tell Papadopoulos about any emails because there is only Papadopoulos's claim about that (true, but why would Papadopoulos fabricate that?) Mifsud wasn't a Russian agent as Papa believed, but was most likely a British one (because the author wants it to be so).
When Mifsud was interviewed by the FBI in 2017, he denied saying anything to Papa about emails. This must be true because Mifsud wasn't charged with lying to the FBI. (Never mind that he perhaps wasn't charged because they couldn't prove this was a lie.) Also, the Mueller report didn't say Mifsud knew about Russian intelligence, therefore Mifsud must not know anything about Russian intelligence (because the Mueller report contain all known information and nothing is true unless reported there).
And on, and on, and on. There is no evidence Papa told the Australian diplomat about the Russian approach because the Aussie can't be trusted, and made the whole thing up.
Yes, there's more. It just keeps on this way, doubting everything except when it's convenient not to doubt something.
The only interesting possible fact in the whole piece is that Steele passed some information on to an FBI legal attache on July 6, 2016. Maybe this was before the Australian wrote his meeting with Papa for the second time, and with much more urgency due to the leak of DNC emails. It should be possible to check this. I'm certainly not taking the word of this author. Nonetheless, it is worth noting the information for future checking.
The upshot of the whole 'it didn't happen' is that there was no other information given to the FBI about Russian contacts with the Trump campaign except for the Steele shitty and questionable research.
But maybe there was... Maybe the Mifsud, Papa, and Australian connection was as reported: a solicitation by Mifsud which Papa spilled to an Australian. Shall I apply Occam's razor?
Image: amazon.com
Update 12/27/19. I checked back to see if the author had amended anything due to the IG report. OF COURSE NOT. DON'T LET FACTS INTERFERE WITH A GREAT NARRATIVE... or even a mediocre narrative. The author, Andrew McCarthy, shows again that he's a hack.
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