This is a bombshell because this is may and the election was November 2016. This report is from May 2016. This was the initial cause of the Russian Dossier from Steele (retired MI6)
Apparently Papadopoulos got drunk with or near Diplomat from Australia before he revealed this information during a Brag fest.
Apparently Papadopoulos got drunk with or near Diplomat from Australia before he revealed this information during a Brag fest.
NYT: Former
Trump campaign
adviser told
Australian diplomat Russia had dirt on Clinton
Trump campaign
adviser told
Australian diplomat Russia had dirt on Clinton
CNN.com
NYT: Former Trump campaign adviser told Australian diplomat Russia had dirt on Clinton
Story highlights
- Papadopoulos earlier was told Moscow had thousands of emails that would embarrass Clinton
- Trump's allies have dismissed the former adviser's influence
Washington (CNN)George
Papadopoulos told an Australian diplomat that Russia had "political
dirt" on Hillary Clinton in May of last year, a conversation that might
have played a role in the FBI's decision to open an investigation into
Russian meddling in the 2016 election, according to a report published
Saturday.
The New York Times reported that
Papadopoulos, then a foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump's campaign,
was drinking at an upscale London bar when he told Australia's top
diplomat in Britain, Alexander Downer, that Russia had political
information on Clinton.
A few weeks before their meeting, Papadopoulos was told Moscow had thousands of emails relating to Clinton, CNN has reported.
About
two months after the meeting with Downer, after WikiLeaks posted hacked
Democratic National Committee emails online, Australian officials
passed Papadopoulos' information along to their US counterparts, the
Times reported, citing four current and former American and foreign
officials with direct knowledge of the Australians' role.
Lawyers
for Papadopoulos and Australian officials did not immediately respond
to CNN's request for comment Saturday. White House special counsel Ty
Cobb declined to comment on the Times' report.
"Out
of respect for the Special Counsel and his process, we are not
commenting on matters such as this," Cobb said in a statement, referring
to Department of Justice special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe.
"We are continuing to fully cooperate with the Special Counsel in order
to help complete their inquiry expeditiously."
The news appears to add to the number of pieces of intelligence, separate from a dossier
compiled by a former British spy about Trump-Russia ties, that raised
concerns among US national security officials and propelled an
investigation.
Trump, the White House and Trump campaign officials have downplayed Papadopoulos' role in the campaign, dismissing him as a "low-level volunteer" and just a "coffee boy." But Papadopoulos represented the Trump campaign at various meetings with foreign officials up until Inauguration Day.
Papadopoulos' fiancee, Simona Mangiante, told CNN in a recent interview
that Papadopoulos was anything but a coffee boy. Mangiante, who
explained she spoke out because Papadopoulos could not, said he worked
with senior members of the Trump campaign. "He worked with Michael Flynn
during the transition, and he was actively contributing to the foreign
policy strategies for the campaign," she said. "He didn't take any
initiative on his own without campaign approval."
In
October, Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to making a false statement to the
FBI "about the timing, extent and nature of his relationships and
interactions with certain foreign nationals whom he understood to have
close connections with senior Russian government officials," according
to court filings.
Papadopoulos
pushed to set up a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and
then-candidate Trump, and had a meeting in April 2016 with a professor
who told him that "the Russians" possessed "dirt" on Hillary Clinton in
the form of "thousands of emails," according to court filings.
Ever since the charges were unsealed, Trump's allies have dismissed the former campaign adviser's influence.
CNN's Evan Perez and Mary Kay Mallonee contributed to this report.
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