Rep. Devin Nunes said there is something “weird” going on with the media’s coverage of the Russia investigation, even after special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation came to a close.
In an interview with Fox News, the California congressman was asked to react to a Washington Post report this week focusing on Maltese academic Joseph Mifsud, the man who told former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos the Russians had damaging information about Hillary Clinton and effectively set in motion what would become the Russia investigation. The report critically assesses what Trump allies such as Nunes have claimed about Mifsud, including that he might be a Western intelligence plant.
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Claiming the Post is “jumping back into the Russia hoax water,” Nunes questioned why such a report would come out when only one person has described Mifsud as an asset of Russia, and it was not even Mueller.
“I think what they found is — they look foolish again,” the California Republican said on Tuesday’s Hannity. “Because look, the only guy that we know that has said for sure that Mifsud is a Russian asset is guess who? James Comey. Just about a month ago in the pages of the Washington Post,” he added, referring to an opinion column that was written in May by the former FBI director and vocal critic of the president.
By contrast, Mueller only went to far as to say Mifsud “had connections to Russia” and “maintained various Russian contacts,” including a with a former employee of the Internet Research Agency, a Russian troll farm that investigators said carried out a social media disinformation campaign to sow discord in the 2016 election.
Mifsud, a London-based professor and former Maltese diplomat, has long been suspected of deep ties to Russian intelligence. He is an elusive figure who has stayed out of the spotlight over the past couple years.
Mueller’s 448-page report, released in April with redactions, shows his team was not able to establish criminal conspiracy between the Russian government and the Trump campaign but left open the question of possible obstruction of justice. The report states that Mifsud traveled to Moscow in April 2016, after which he met Papadopoulos in London. It was at this meeting, Mueller’s report said, that Mifsud informed Papadopoulos that during his trip he learned that the Russians had “dirt” on Clinton, who served as secretary of state from 2009 to 2013 and was President Trump’s Democratic rival in the 2016 election, in the form of “thousands of emails.” Papadopoulos later repeated this claim to Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, who informed the U.S. government and prompted the original counterintelligence investigation into Trump’s campaign in July 2016.
Mifsud has denied that he told Papadopoulos the Russians had Clinton’s emails, and a Swiss man claiming to be his attorney, Stephan Roh, told the Post that his client is a “Western intelligence element to be protected” and claims that Mifsud has ties to Russian intelligence are “defamatory accusations.”
Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, has said Mifsud has connections to all sorts of intelligence agencies, including U.S., British, and Italian intelligence services, and has sent requests to U.S. intelligence agencies and the State Department seeking relevant information.
Decrying how “none of this makes any sense,” Nunes questioned the Post’s “supposed sources that they don’t name” and the outlet’s inability to get to the bottom of the Mifsud mystery. He also wondered why the Post conducted an interview with London attorney Arvinder Sambei, who set up a meeting between Papadopoulos and Mifsud, but did not report on whether she claimed to know if Mifsud worked with the Russians.
Guest host Dan Bongino asked Nunes why, if there is legitimate belief that Mifsud was a Russian agent, there has not been a damage assessment.
“If Mifsud was a Russian asset — my God. You’ve got the FBI, the State Department, the U.S. Congress. All of our allies, NATO, Boris Johnson. I mean, they’ve all been compromised by this Russian asset, famous Russian asset, Joseph Mifsud. So look, The fact that they’re not doing a damage assessment, Dan, I think tells you in the American people all you need to know. Highly unlikely that Mifsud is a Russian asset,” Nunes said.
