{"id":62081,"date":"2018-06-12T17:05:01","date_gmt":"2018-06-12T15:05:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=62081"},"modified":"2018-06-08T18:05:07","modified_gmt":"2018-06-08T16:05:07","slug":"19-05-28","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=62081","title":{"rendered":"How Russiagate Became Israelgate"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>How Russiagate Became Israelgate<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n

Lee Smith<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Special counsel Robert Mueller leaves after a closed meeting with members of the Senate Judiciary Committee June 21, 2017.(Alex Wong\/Getty Images)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Earlier in the week, the\u00a0Daily Caller<\/em>\u00a0reported<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0<\/a>that\u00a0George Papadopoulos\u2019s wife, an Italian lawyer named\u00a0Simona\u00a0Mangiante, said her husband had\u00a0pleaded\u00a0guilty in July to lying to the FBI to avoid charges by special counsel Robert Mueller\u2019s team that he was an\u00a0agent of the Israeli government.\u00a0Her husband\u2019s lawyers tried to throw cold water on her intervention with a statement explaining: \u201cThe most accurate account of Mr. Papadopoulos\u2019 plea agreement and plea of guilty is contained in the publicly filed court records and the transcript of Mr. Papadopoulos\u2019 guilty plea.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

However, an\u00a0article<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0in the\u00a0Washington Post\u00a0<\/em>on\u00a0Mangiante\u2019s\u00a0claim suggests that the 29-year-old former Trump adviser\u2019s ostensible ties to Israel have become a subject of general interest, albeit thinly sourced. The\u00a0Post<\/em>\u00a0reports that\u00a0Papadapoulos\u00a0wrote for Israeli publications, including\u00a0Haaretz<\/em>, and struck up an acquaintance with a Netanyahu aide, Eli\u00a0Groner.<\/span><\/p>\n

Needless to say, the mention of Israel was catnip for\u00a0Russiagate\u00a0conspiracy theorists\u2014even though Israel is\u00a0not\u00a0Russia, and Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu would appear to have\u00a0some strong\u00a0differences in, among other places, Syria.\u00a0\u201cIsraeli espionage against the United States is a perennially touchy subject in Washington,\u201d former National Security Agency analyst John Schindler\u00a0writes\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/a>this week in the\u00a0Observer<\/em>,\u00a0once\u00a0owned by Trump\u2019s son-in-law Jared Kushner.<\/span><\/p>\n

Schindler quotes a colleague from the\u00a0US\u00a0intelligence community who wonders, \u201cWhat if the real secret of the Trump campaign isn\u2019t that it\u2019s a Kremlin operation, rather an Israeli operation masquerading as a Russian one?\u201d\u00a0While President Trump\u2019s\u00a0policies haven\u2019t exactly favored\u00a0Vladimir Putin, Schindler admits, Israel is another story. \u201cTrump has gone whole-hog for the Israeli right-wing,\u201d writes the former American spy. \u201cThe recent move of our embassy to Jerusalem, long desired by the Israeli Right, is merely the most prominent of Trump\u2019s gifts to his pal\u00a0Bibi\u00a0and his ruling Likud party.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Amassing further evidence of the Trump administration\u2019s support for a key US ally, Schindler concludes: \u201cIt\u2019s no wonder that Mueller and his investigators are trying to get to the bottom of what certain Israelis were doing in 2016 in secret to boost the Trump campaign. That answer may eventually prove just as important as Mueller\u2019s inquiry into the Kremlin and its clandestine attack on our democracy two years ago.\u201d\u00a0Reached for comment, Schindler admitted that concrete facts in this case were in short supply. \u201cThere is as yet no sign that these individuals were tied to the Israeli government,\u201d he said, \u201cthough the past connection of some of those individuals to Israeli intelligence raises obvious questions.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In other words, if the\u00a0Russiagate\u00a0conspiracy theory doesn\u2019t pan out, maybe\u00a0Israelgate\u00a0will explain why.<\/span><\/p>\n

But that doesn\u2019t mean it isn\u2019t worth asking the question: Is George\u00a0Papadopoulos\u00a0actually not a Russian agent of influence, but\u00a0an Israeli spy?<\/span><\/p>\n

According to the\u00a0December 30, 2017\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0story<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0that first laid out the genesis of the investigation,\u00a0the FBI\u00a0started its\u00a0probe\u00a0with\u00a0a tip from\u00a0Alexander Downer, Australia\u2019s\u00a0High Commissioner to the United Kingdom,\u00a0who\u00a0met with Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos\u00a0in London in May 2016. Papadopoulos\u00a0informed Downer\u00a0that\u00a0he had\u00a0been told by a\u00a0\u201cKremlin-linked\u201d\u00a0professor\u00a0that Russia had potentially damaging information on Hillary Clinton.<\/span><\/p>\n

In an\u00a0April, 2018\u00a0article in\u00a0The\u00a0Australian<\/em>,\u00a0Downer\u00a0explained that\u00a0he\u00a0had\u00a0reached out\u00a0to Papadopoulos\u00a0through an \u201cIsraeli contact.\u201d According to a\u00a0story<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0from the\u00a0Daily Caller<\/em>, the Israeli contact is\u00a0Christian Cantor,\u00a0an official\u00a0at\u00a0the Israeli embassy in London, who introduced\u00a0Papadopoulos\u00a0to\u00a0\u201cErika Thompson, a counselor to Downer who serves in Australia\u2019s London embassy.\u201d Downer had\u00a0wanted to speak to Papadopoulos after he made disparaging comments about UK Prime Minister David Cameron in the British press, and told\u00a0Thompson\u00a0to reach\u00a0out\u00a0to\u00a0the Trump adviser.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, according to senior US officials reached by\u00a0Tablet<\/em>, the Australians are saying it was\u00a0the other way around. \u201cThe Australians are\u00a0telling reporters that\u00a0the Israelis\u00a0put\u00a0Papadopoulos\u00a0in front of them,\u201d one told me this week.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Australian embassy\u00a0in Washington\u00a0did not respond to a request for comment.\u00a0The Israeli embassy in Washington\u00a0did not respond to similar requests, nor\u00a0did\u00a0spokespersons in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s office.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not hard to see why the Canberra government would be eager to get out of the spotlight. An\u00a0article<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0in the\u00a0Wall Street Journal<\/em>\u00a0last week\u00a0shows that Downer\u00a0went through unusual channels to report his tip.\u00a0Rather than\u00a0reporting his conversation to\u00a0the Australian\u00a0government,\u00a0according to whom Downer broke protocol\u00a0and instead contacted a\u00a0diplomat at the US embassy in London, Elizabeth Dibble.\u00a0Somehow the information made its way up the chain at the State Department,\u00a0which relayed the tip to federal law enforcement. Congressional investigators on the Republican side believe that\u00a0Downer\u2014who was\u00a0instrumental<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0in securing $25 million from his government to help the Clinton Global Initiative fight AIDS\u2014may have been\u00a0participating in\u00a0a sting\u00a0operation against a US presidential campaign.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s unlikely\u00a0Australia intended any lasting harm\u00a0in seeking to swap responsibility for the Papadopoulos meeting with Israel.\u00a0The problem\u00a0is that this is all emerging in the midst of other Israel-related\u00a0matters\u00a0in the\u00a0Russiagate\u00a0scandal.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some conservative journalists\u00a0have\u00a0argued<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0that Mueller appears to have a\u00a0problem<\/a>\u00a0with Israel.\u00a0In particular, they note\u00a0the 2004 sting operation\u00a0designed to root out Israeli spies\u00a0that\u00a0the\u00a0FBI\u00a0conducted\u00a0when\u00a0Mueller was\u00a0director\u2014an operation\u00a0which has some notable similarities with\u00a0the FBI\u2019s July 2016 Trump campaign investigation, in which\u00a0the bureau reportedly ran an informant,\u00a0Stefan\u00a0Halper, a\u00a0former US official, who met\u00a0with at least three members of the Trump campaign.<\/span><\/p>\n

For the Israeli spy ring probe, Mueller\u2019s FBI\u00a0employed\u00a0similar tactics, using\u00a0Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin as\u00a0a\u00a0informant<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0and convincing him to\u00a0wear a wire when he met with Israeli officials and AIPAC analyst Keith\u00a0Weissman, after convincing\u00a0him that\u00a0Weissman and\u00a0AIPAC\u00a0colleague\u00a0Steven Rosen\u00a0were, as Franklin\u2019s words,\u00a0\u201cbad people.\u201d\u00a0According to a 2009\u00a0Washington Post<\/em>\u00a0article<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0by Gary Wasserman,\u00a0the two AIPAC officials \u201cwere targets of a bizarre sting in which they were fed false information suggesting that the lives of U.S. and Israeli operatives in Iraq were at risk and that American officials were refusing to take steps to protect them.\u201d\u00a0 When Rosen and\u00a0Weissman\u00a0passed that information on to\u00a0Israeli officials and\u00a0to\u00a0the\u00a0Washington Post<\/em>, and tried to\u00a0reach\u00a0George W. Bush\u2019s National Security Council staff, they were arrested.\u00a0In 2009, charges against the two\u00a0men\u00a0were dropped.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to the 2009\u00a0Post<\/em>\u00a0article, \u201cFranklin was apparently sent out by his FBI handlers to tempt Jews. He tried Adam Ciralsky at CBS News, who had once sued the CIA for anti-Semitism, and Richard Perle, who was on his way to vacation in France, as well as Pentagon employees who had done nothing more than work with Franklin. All turned down the offer of information.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Hints of a Jewish conspiracy that was part of or behind the Trump-Russia collusion theory have long circulated among the conspiracy-mongers and in the press.\u00a0In his November\u00a014,\u00a02017\u00a0testimony<\/a>\u00a0before the House Intelligence Committee, Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson said that the Jewish diaspora \u201cappears to be a very interesting route for the Russians.\u201d The Steele dossier, which was marketed by Simpson\u2019s company,\u00a0elaborates on that claim.\u00a0The FSB,\u00a0claims one of Steele\u2019s ostensible sources,\u00a0was approaching \u201cU.S. citizens of Russian (Jewish) origin on business trips to Russia\u201d as potential foreign agents.<\/span><\/p>\n

In April 2017,\u00a0Politico<\/em>\u00a0picked up on the\u00a0theme with a story about the alleged ties between Trump, Putin, Jared Kushner, and a \u201chappy-go-lucky Jewish group\u201d called\u00a0Chabad, \u201cthe most sprawling Jewish institution in the world.\u201d\u00a0Tablet<\/em>\u00a0reported\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/a>that Fusion GPS was\u00a0believed to be the\u00a0source for the\u00a0Politico\u00a0<\/em>story.\u00a0The ostensible Trump-Putin-Chabad\u00a0link appeared in the press again, including on the BBC, with the arrest of Michael Cohen, and was also quickly disproved.<\/span><\/p>\n

That the collusion spotlight\u00a0has now focused more intensely on\u00a0Israel\u00a0and the\u00a0Jews\u00a0in a story that\u2019s ostensibly about Russia and Donald Trump\u00a0makes a weird kind of sense. As a conspiracy theory becomes larger, incorporates more actors and institutions, points to more events, more connections, it\u00a0shows more gaps in its logic. As\u00a0the\u00a0conspiracy theorists struggle to explain or reconcile contradictions in their accounts,\u00a0the\u00a0pull towards the deus ex machine of all conspiracy theories\u2014the powerful, wealthy,\u00a0rootless, cosmopolitan\u00a0wanderers of the earth\u2014only\u00a0gets stronger.<\/span><\/p>\n

Seen this way, shifting the spotlight in Russiagate\u00a0to Israel and the Jews\u00a0would seem to portend\u00a0a weakening of the collusion narrative.\u00a0It\u2019s difficult to imagine that many\u00a0of the\u00a0prominent figures on the left and the Never Trump right\u00a0who have\u00a0seen\u00a0the\u00a0Russiagate\u00a0conspiracy\u00a0as a useful instrument\u00a0to\u00a0weaken\u00a0or corral Trump\u00a0will be eager\u00a0to push a\u00a0narrative\u00a0about clandestine Jewish control of American politics.\u00a0Perhaps\u00a0Russiagate believers\u00a0will break into two separate\u00a0camps, Trump-Russia and Trump-Israel.\u00a0In the meantime, there\u2019s not much for the rest of us to do but watch.<\/span><\/p>\n

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How Russiagate Became Israelgate Lee Smith Special counsel Robert Mueller leaves after a closed meeting with members of the Senate Judiciary Committee June 21, 2017.(Alex Wong\/Getty Images) Earlier in the week, the\u00a0Daily Caller\u00a0reported\u00a0that\u00a0George Papadopoulos\u2019s wife, an Italian lawyer named\u00a0Simona\u00a0Mangiante, said her husband had\u00a0pleaded\u00a0guilty in July to lying to the FBI to avoid charges by special […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62081"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62081"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62081\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62093,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62081\/revisions\/62093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}