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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWho Is Joseph Mifsud?
His titles had a loftiness to match: president, director, and according to his online biography, founding father of the term Academic Diplomacy.
But in the plea agreement unsealed last week as part of special counsel Robert S. Mueller IIIs investigation into Russian influence on last years U.S. presidential election, he is simply and mysteriously the professor.
Joseph Mifsud, the man who, according to court papers, offered himself as a bridge between the Trump campaign and the highest echelons of the Kremlin, has spent his career trading one impressive-looking business card for the next.
To George Papadopoulos, the Trump foreign policy aide who liaised with Mifsud, the Maltese academic may have appeared to be just the sort of man needed to cut through the impenetrable fog of Moscow power structures.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/is-there-more-than-meets-the-eye-with-the-professor-at-the-center-of-the-trump-russia-probe-or-less/2017/11/03/4e95ec48-c006-11e7-9294-705f80164f6e_story.html?utm_term=.344ca3c87ddd
Academic at heart of Clinton 'dirt' claim vanishes, leaving trail of questions
(CNN)Joseph Mifsud, the Maltese academic suspected of being a link between the Trump campaign and Russian officials, was once a regular on the foreign policy circuit, attending conferences the world over.
Now, after being identified as a key figure in the US special counsel investigation into Russian influence over the 2016 US presidential election, Mifsud has gone to ground.
Last Thursday he disappeared from the private university in Rome where he teaches. Repeated attempts to reach him since have been unsuccessful, though he appears to have read some messages from CNN.
But more details are emerging of the background and contacts of the man who emerged last week as "the professor" in court filings relating to charges brought against former Trump aide George Papadopoulos.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/08/politics/joseph-mifsud-trump-russia-investigation/index.html
underpants
(182,829 posts)Me.
(35,454 posts)dhol82
(9,353 posts)https://www.buzzfeed.com/albertonardelli/bio-of-professor-at-the-center-of-the-trump-russia-probe?utm_term=.pf5eaEMnG#.ecKvae732
Sorry, I cant do cut and paste from my iPad.
Me.
(35,454 posts)When he was unmasked as the unnamed overseas professor cited in the documents filed in October by TrumpRussia special counsel Robert Mueller, Mifsud led a three-year degree course in political science and international relations, according to a bio then on the website of the Link Campus University in Rome. The Maltese academic was also listed as an overseas professor on the LCUs faculty pages, archived versions of the website show.
The bio now leads to a 404 error page, while Mifsuds name no longer appears on the LCUs faculty pages
.
Also now missing from the LCU faculty pages is Nagi Idris, director of the London Centre of International Law Practice, an organization with which both Mifsud and Papadopoulos claimed to have been affiliated in the past. Idris was previously listed as an overseas professor on the faculty pages, according to archived versions of the website. And in an online bio he describes himself as a visiting professor at the university.
Igel
(35,320 posts)Link University is a small, for-profit university that was associated with the U. of Malta and split off. It offers something like 6 degrees.
Me.
(35,454 posts)But he is still a player and one of the connecting dots
dhol82
(9,353 posts)At this point I trust no one and believe all are suspect until proven otherwise.
lindysalsagal
(20,692 posts)More of Kremlin's Opponents are Ending Up Dead.
Muckraking journalists, rights advocates, opposition politicians, government whistle-blowers and other Russians who threaten that image are treated harshly imprisoned on trumped-up charges, smeared in the news media and, with increasing frequency, killed.
Political murders, particularly those accomplished with poisons, are nothing new in Russia, going back five centuries. Nor are they particularly subtle. While typically not traceable to any individuals and plausibly denied by government officials, poisonings leave little doubt of the states involvement which may be precisely the point.
SharonAnn
(13,776 posts)Anyone who could compromise the Kremlin or who doesn't totally permit it control, can be poisoned. And it happens.
BTW, the 2nd season of Fargo story line was how borrowing money from "Russians" gave the mob control of your business, they used it for money laundering but kept the owner on as the "Front Man", would not let the owner pay back the debt, and eventually they killed everyone who tried to stop them (including the owner). It was pretty scary and probably quite real.
I think this is the Trump situation. He owes them money, they control him, if he doesn't permit them to do what they want, they will kill him (probably by poison).
Wounded Bear
(58,668 posts)I imagine he's scared about that.
LenaBaby61
(6,974 posts)IF the ruskies (putin) REALLY, REALLY wanted to get the big, fat, tReasonous orange turd that they laugh @ and call their useful idiot, they could. And, it wouldn't have anything to do with Big Macs, Fries, Fish sandwiches or the shakes that the hog scarfs down at an alarming rate.
blaze
(6,362 posts)and appreciate your (and others) efforts to keep us informed.
lindysalsagal
(20,692 posts)They may very well become 45's "Nixon tapes." and we know what happened with those.....
Sneederbunk
(14,291 posts)dalton99a
(81,515 posts)wcmagumba
(2,886 posts)most definitely dead...or not?