Notes on the FBI’s interview with the mysterious Maltese professor Joseph Mifsud were made public Tuesday, showing denials from a key Trump-Russia inquiry figure who special counsel Robert Mueller says lied to investigators yet was never charged.
The notes, released as part of a BuzzFeed Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, span only a page and a half, indicating that the FBI’s Feb. 11, 2017, interview with Mifsud in the lobby of the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C., was a brief and cursory one in the grand scheme of the investigation.
George Papadopoulos, a former Trump campaign adviser who pleaded guilty in 2017 to making false statements to federal agents about his communications with Mifsud and two Russian nationals, Olga Polonskaya and Ivan Timofeev, told investigators that Mifsud said at a London meeting in April 2016 that Russia possessed damaging information on Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of emails, a claim Australian diplomat Alexander Downer says Papadopoulos later conveyed to him. The FBI says the diplomat’s account spurred the beginning of the Trump-Russia investigation.
“Mifsud stated he had no advance knowledge Russia was in possession of emails from the Democratic National Committee and, therefore, did not make any offers or proffer any information to Papadopoulos. They spoke about cyber security and hacking as a larger issue,” the interviewing agent wrote. “Papadopoulos must have misunderstood their conversation … Mifsud has not seen Papadopoulos since the U.K. meeting.”
The FBI wrote that “Mifsud did not believe Polenskaya was related to Vladimir Putin or any other Russian government officials.” Papadopoulos said that Mifsud had told him that Polenskaya was Putin’s niece. The bureau also said that “Mifsud stated Papadopoulos was interested in foreign policy ideas, Trump’s recent speech, Israel, migration, Russia, and other geopolitical subjects” and that Mifsud called meeting Papadopoulos mere “happenstance.”
In an email from Mifsud to the FBI shortly after the interview and obtained by the Hill, Mifsud claimed that “cybersecurity was never the direct object of any of our conversations” — a likely reference to Russia’s hack of the DNC.
Mifsud left the United States after his FBI interview and was last seen in public in October 2017 at Link Campus in Rome. Efforts by the Senate Intelligence Committee to interview him were unsuccessful. Mifsud’s passport was discovered to have been sitting in a lost-and-found on the Portuguese island of Madeira since August 2017.
Mueller’s report said Mifsud lied to the FBI, noting that Mifsud “denied that he had advance knowledge that Russia was in possession of emails damaging to candidate Clinton.” The special counsel said Mifsud “also falsely stated that he had not seen Papadopoulos since the meeting at which Mifsud introduced him to Polonskaya,” despite evidence showing Mifsud and Papadopoulos met at least two other times in April 2016. Mifsud also “omitted that he had drafted (or edited) the follow-up message that Polonskaya sent to Papadopoulos.”
Mueller’s team argued in its sentencing memorandum for Papadopoulos that “his lies to the FBI in January 2017 impeded the FBI’s investigation into Russian interference.” Mueller’s team claimed that Papadopoulos’s lies “substantially hindered” its ability to “question” Mifsud effectively and “undermined” its ability to “challenge” Mifsud or “detain or arrest him.”
During Mueller’s House testimony in July 2019, Republican Rep. Jim Jordan asked Mueller if the special counsel interviewed Mifsud, if Mifsud lied to them, and whether Mifsud was Western intelligence or Russian intelligence. Mueller replied, “I can’t get into that” each time, prompting Jordan to lament: “The central figure [Mifsud] who launches it all lies to us, and you guys don’t hunt him down and interview him again, and you don’t charge him with a crime.”
During an FBI interview on Feb. 1, 2017, Papadopoulos told the FBI he “knew Mifsud to be an associate of a Russian discussion club” and “that Mifsud was … coordinating all things related to Russia at the London Centre of International Law Practice.” He told the investigators that “Mifsud recently reached out to Papadopoulos and indicated that he may be traveling to Washington, D.C., in February 2017.” Papadopoulos offered to “potentially meet with Mifsud” when traveling to London three weeks later.
Mueller’s 2019 report said Mifsud had “connections to Russia” and noted he “traveled to Moscow in April 2016” and “met with high-level Russian government officials” before telling Papadopoulos about the Clinton “dirt.” The FBI sent informants, including Cambridge professor Stefan Halper, and spoke with and recorded Papadopoulos, but Papadopoulos’s repeated denials of Russian collusion were never relayed to the FISA Court.
House Intelligence Committee ranking member Devin Nunes has said Mifsud likely has links to Western intelligence and accused Mueller’s team of deciding to “cherry-pick” information, saying Mueller’s team should be looked at criminally. Former FBI Director James Comey called Mifsud a “Russian agent” last year, something not claimed by Mueller. DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz didn’t find evidence that Mifsud was an FBI asset.
Attorney General William Barr and U.S. Attorney John Durham are conducting an inquiry into the Russia investigation’s origins and have sought information about Mifsud. Horowitz found the Trump-Russia investigation had “sufficient factual predication.” Durham disagreed, saying that “we do not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened.” Barr said the basis was “insufficient.”
Downer met Papadopoulos at London’s Kensington Wine Rooms in May 2016. Papadopoulos said the Russians had damaging information on Clinton, and, two months later, when WikiLeaks published emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee by Russia, Downer informed the U.S.
The Senate Intelligence Committee report from August found that “Mifsud was aware of an aspect of Russia’s active measures campaign in the 2016 election and that Mifsud told Papadopoulos what he knew.” The panel said investigators “could not determine if Papadopoulos informed anyone on the Trump Campaign.” The report assessed that Papadopoulos “was not a witting co-optee of the Russian intelligence services,” but “Papadopoulos’s contacts with Mifsud … are highly suspicious.” The report said Mifsud “exhibited behavior consistent with intelligence tradecraft” but didn’t reach a conclusion about whether he was working for anybody.
Mueller concluded Russia interfered in 2016 in a “sweeping and systematic fashion” but “did not establish” any criminal conspiracy between Russia and Trump’s campaign.
