The Democrats are facing disaster if the real situation as to the origins of the Russian Hoax story comes out. The following article from Bloomberg News referred to the situation:
“The Italian prime minister was drinking prosecco with his staff at his Roman apartment when an aide pulled him aside to say Matteo Salvini, the populist deputy premier, had announced his intention to bring down the government.
Conte smiled and went back to his 55th birthday celebrations. It was the dead of summer, and over the rest of that August, the soft-spoken law professor not only out-maneuvered his rival to keep his job but also got ever closer to Donald Trump in ways that are now casting a shadow over his reputation.
Italy, it would soon emerge, was a key link in the U.S. president’s efforts to discredit his enemies in Washington, and Conte is suspected of bending the rules to curry favor in his hour of need with a powerful ally.
As a result, he’s facing attacks within his administration and will be summoned to explain himself in front of the parliament’s intelligence committee -- heads of the intelligence services will be called up too. There will likely be a Conte hearing next week, according to a senior lawmaker.
Not only that. Salvini is now in opposition and has a grudge. The anti-immigration League chief saw himself as Trump’s best friend in Italy and modeled his campaign on “America First.” He also spent his time in office trying to build a rapport with the U.S. leader. Only to see Conte beat him to it.
With the waters muddied by the impeachment saga, here is what we know.
A week after Conte’s birthday, U.S. Attorney General William Barr made a secret visit to Rome to meet with the head of the Italian intelligence agencies, a senior Italian official said. According to Corriere della Sera, the visit was authorized by the prime minister himself.
Barr is looking into how evidence emerged of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election and was trying to track down a Maltese academic who had allegedly tipped off Trump’s campaign team that Russia had emails that could hurt Hillary Clinton. That contact had once worked at a private university in Rome only to mysteriously disappear.
Conte and Trump bumped into each other at a summit of Group of Seven leaders in Biarritz, France and caught up informally. Although it had been Salvini who had courted Trump most openly in Italy, Conte is the one who won a glowing endorsement from the president.
A month later, Barr was back in Rome, this time with prosecutor John Durham, for a second meeting with intelligence officials.
All this flies in the face of standard practice, according to two people familiar with such procedures. A U.S. investigator would typically have to rout his request through different layers of administration in Washington and Rome, they said.
A more prudent premier would have protected himself by insisting on standard procedure, a former senior Italian official said, especially since the intelligence chief is a personal friend whom Conte appointed.
Lawmakers want to know what mandate Conte gave the spy chiefs, why a foreign government minister met with intelligence chiefs, whether the Italian secret services carried out an investigation for Barr, and whether Conte informed anyone else in the government.
Conte sees no anomaly in the behavior of Italian secret service chiefs, his office said Oct. 3. His spokesman didn’t respond to a request for further clarification about the sequence of events.
Creaking Coalition
The consequences though are already unfolding as Conte’s new power base started cracking hours after his junior ministers were sworn in.
Former Premier Matteo Renzi had persuaded his Democratic Party to join up with the anti-establishment Five Star Movement to form the new coalition -- only to rethink his decision.
As the new ministers were still settling into their offices, Renzi called Conte to announce that he was jumping ship to set up his own party. Conte demanded to know why Renzi hadn’t warned him sooner.
Although Renzi has pledged full support to the new government, he’s also called for Conte to surrender control over the intelligence agencies and to appear before the parliamentary committee on the secret services to explain himself.
Italians appear impervious to scandal. Conte’s own ratings seem unscathed, much as Salvini’s were at the height of “Russiagate.” At stake is Italy’s standing in the world order.
It’s all an uncomfortable reminder of how Conte’s first term panned out: Salvini was nominally inside the government, but spent much of his time attacking the administration. Ultimately, those tensions toppled the coalition.
All three coalition parties are committed to seeing out the legislature, which ends in 2023. But one junior minister said he expects it will break down within a year as internal divisions and a lack of public support take their toll.
In the midst of the turmoil, Conte hosted French President Emmanuel Macron for dinner at his official residence of Palazzo Chigi and defaulted to flattery to paper over past skirmishes.
Dessert was croissant-flavored ice cream. Speaking in English, Conte proposed a toast to the revived relationship between their two countries.
“To us,” he said, raising a glass of 2009 (Italian) white.”
So lets face facts - the following countries were obviously involved:-
ITALY
The first indication was involvement of Italy through a Professor Mifsud in the starting of the process leading up to the Steele Dossier. He was allegedly from Malta and started the story about Russia having e-mails that was besmirching Clinton and he approached a person (Papadopoulos) in the Trump campaign with the story.
Mifsud was as alleged by the DP a Russian Agent and that allegation was repeated and included in the Mueller Report. However, subsequent information was that he in fact was in the employ of the CIA as an agent. He regularly visited the USA until January 2018 and in contact with the CIA all through the time since 2015. Mifsud in a statement to the FBI lied about the issue three times and no action was taken against him. Mifsud has now disappeared and he is likely somewhere in Europe under protection of the CIA.
Barr was authorized by Trump to release all documents as to the Russian Hoax story and initial indication was that there was a need for a full investigation as to the origins of the plot against Trump orchestrated by the Obama Administration. It was clear that the plot was concocted initially in Italy where Mifsud were operating, So Barr went to Italy and with the permission of the Italian Prime Minster met with the Head of Intelligence Services of Italy, What came out must have been a horror story and Barr went to Italy to introduce John Durham to get down to the facts as to what the Italian Government did know about the issue in 2016, otherwise he would not have taken Durham with him and further investigate the Italian involvement in the plot.
UKRAINE
The role of Ukraine is critical in the plot. In a recent court case in Ukraine two officials were found guilty of illegal involvement in the US election in 2016. However, there are other major problem issues as to Ukraine and that relates to an invitation to Ukraine Prosecutors by the Obama Whitehouse to deal with corruption in Ukraine - a very real problem that was encountered in Ukraine ever since the 1990's. That sounds great until the discussions commenced. There was no discussions as to corruption and the Ukrainians were told to -
* stop investigating the Burisma Company - the Board of which Hunter Biden served on; and
* and concentrate their investigation on Manaford - the Trump Campaign Manager instead.
However, the US was not successful in forcing the issue through and the final word came from Biden who told Ukraine that unless the Chief Prosecutor involved in the investigation of Burisma is fired the USA will withhold a loan facility to the Ukrainian Government.
It is this issue that Barr want to investigate. The problem in fact involved has in fact very little to do with the Biden corruption issue - more with how the Obama Administration co-ordinated the plot against Trump through Ukrainian assistance. There are a multitude of problems involved here:-
* The involvement of Podesta - the Chairman of the Clinton campaign in 2016, who together with Manaford were illegally involved in business operations in Ukraine - Manaford was found guilty of an offence, nothing was done against Podesta who was involved in the same company.
* There is a Ukrainian billionaire who got hold of all the e-mails and correspondence between the Ukrainian officials and the DNC and Trump referred to those in his telephone call with the Ukraine President in July 2019. The new President was elected in May 2019 and has embarked on his own probe as to corruption in the country itself - but also in the issue of potential US corruption in the Ukraine. Aside from Podesta, there were involvement in the issue by the some of Schiff in dealings with an Ukrainian arms manufacturer as well. The Biden's were obviously also involved in that corruption problem.
* A full investigation of what happened here would not only land DP top brass in jail - it would really harm the party itself. An excuse was developed by the DP to stop the real problem investigation in the Ukraine so the Impeachment Proceedings were instituted, The DP is desperately trying to keep this out of the public domain. However, it is indeed doubtful whether that strategy would work out.
RUSSIA
This is one country that would not co-operate with any investigation into the plot. In documents and e-mails that surfaced it was clear that -
* The Clinton Foundation got a payment of $142 million for mysterious services allegedly for Clinton's involvement in the sale of 20% of the strategic US Uranium Reserve to Russia. The money was paid to the Foundation by a Russian state-owned company, That issue was hushed up by the FBI and not really investigated. The main issue is for what was the money used and who benefitted from it? The latter is clearly going to raise its ugly head in the present investigation, There was in fact an e-mail already exposed that Clinton was on the inside track in the Putin Government in Russia.
* Even though Podesta was involved in the Ukraine - he was even more involved in Russia. He was on the Board of a US company in which a Russian State enterprise invested $35 million. In exchange he was offered 75 000 shares in the Russian State-owned Company. Even though Podesta denied that he received the 75 000 shares, there is written proof that he did receive the shares. He divested his Board membership of the company the Russian invested $35 million in and transfer his shares in the US company together with the 75 000 shares to a company owned and operated by his daughter.
* The son of Nancy Pelosi was also involved in both Ukraine and in Russia. His first involvement was promoting the interests of the previous President of Ukraine who fled to Moscow in 2014 in the USA, After that he was involved as another company dealing with Russia and who was dissolved in 2017. On the Board of this company was Pelosi's son and a Russian from Moscow. Pelosi's son did not do welfare work for the Ukraine and Russian Governments. He as effectively also an agent of those two Governments.
From the above it was clear that Putin had a real interest of election of Clinton as US president in 2016 and was active in feeding information to sabotage the Trump campaign. It seems as if the DP top brass use their position to enrich themselves and their children in corrupt activities in Russia and the Ukraine.
This is ugly stuff and the DP is desperate to keep the lid on that one.
UNITED KINGDOM
The main problem is that it is the country from which the Steele Dossier originated. The question remains -
* what was the link between the FBI, the CIA and Steele in producing the Dossier;
* who paid for the Dossier compilation - there is proof that the Dossier was paid for by the Clinton Foundation - but allegations that the FBI through agency fees paid to Steele also contributed to the funding of the Dossier;
* what involvement was there by UK officials in trying to entrap Papadopoulos in a snare that would allow the FBI and CIA to spy on the Trump campaign.
No bribery and corruption in this case, but illegal involvement of a foreign country in a US election.
AUSTRALIA
The Australian High Commissioner in the UK played a key role in getting the Steele Dossier and resulted in a query by Trump to ask the Australian Premier for assistance toc lea up the situation. Apparently the guy involved is not in the employ of the Australian Government anymore and it is likely that they would only look for a sworn statement from him.
The above is ugly stuff and it is no wonder that the DP is onto the impeachment drive to keep the truth hidden.