Australian media confirms NYT report on what Papadopoulos told Australian diplomat

[highplainsdem]

Found thanks to this tweet from MSNBC's Kyle Griffin:

Link to tweet

Australian media confirms NYT report that George Papadopoulos told an Australian diplomat in May 2016 that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton; that conversation was passed on to officials in the Australian government.

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/joe-hockey-discussed-downers-russia-revelations-with-fbi-20180101-h0c58c.html

The ambassador to the United States Joe Hockey personally steered Australia's dealings with the FBI on explosive revelations of Russian hacking during last year's presidential campaign in a sign of how politically sensitive the Australian government regarded the bombshell discovery, Fairfax Media understands.

It is also understood there is now annoyance and frustration in Canberra that the High Commissioner to Britain Alexander Downer has been outed through leaks by US officials as the source of information that played a role in sparking an FBI probe into the Trump campaign's dealings with Moscow.

Fairfax Media has confirmed independently that the conversation first reported by The New York Times took place. In May 2016, Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos told Mr Downer over drinks at an upscale London wine bar that the Russians had a dirt file on rival candidate Hillary Clinton in the form of hacked Democratic Party emails.

Mr Downer conveyed the conversation to Canberra via an official cable, though apparently not immediately – perhaps because he did not take the 28-year-old adviser's claims altogether seriously until the hacked emails were released by Wikileaks in late July.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is planning a trip to the United States in February, Fairfax Media understands. Mr Turnbull said on Monday he was "not at all" worried that Australia's role in sparking the investigation that has become a consuming headache for Mr Trump would damage his relationship with the President. Beyond that he refused to comment.

Mr Hockey is believed to have been involved in discussions with the FBI, indicating the Australian government was keenly alive to its political sensitivity, given it raised the possibility that one side of a presidential campaign was colluding with a foreign power against the other side.

Former officials and experts have said Australia dealt with the fraught situation correctly and had little choice but to share information of this nature with its closest ally. Serving and former officials also said Canberra had every right to be annoyed that Mr Downer's involvement had been made public.

-snip-

[writes3000]

1. Thanks for sharing. Good to have this confirmation.