as usual , Libtards can't see past the headline ,
look deeper
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/nov/6/joseph-mifsud-puts-rome-italy-ce...Trump counterprobe descends on Rome as questions swirl around mysterious Joseph Mifsud
The Frecce Tricolori Italian Air Force acrobatic squad flies over Rome’s skyline on the occasion of the 72nd anniversary of founding of the Italian Republic in 1946, Saturday, June 2, 2018. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia) more >
By Eric J. Lyman - Special to The Washington Times - - Wednesday, November 6, 2019
ROME — The comings and goings in the Italian capital in recent weeks read like a who’s who list of allies and surrogates for President Trump.
Among those who have passed through Rome since August: Attorney General William P. Barr, U.S. District Attorney and “Russia-gate” investigator John Durham, former Trump White House aide Sebastian Gorka, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and first son-in-law and senior presidential adviser Jared Kushner and his wife and first daughter, Ivanka Trump.
Add to that list former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, who advises a far-right Italian political party and has tried to set up a populist academy outside Rome, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, whose wife, Callista, is the U.S. ambassador to the Vatican.
Russia and Ukraine may be the stars in the drama in Washington over hacking the 2016 election and trying to game the 2020 vote. But Italy, for good or bad, is cast in a meaty supporting role.
“Rome has always been on the political fault lines for many different reasons,” said Francesco Galietti, co-founder and CEO of Policy Sonar, a Rome-based political risk consultancy. “These figures aren’t all coming through town for the same set of reasons, but these visits do show that Rome still has a certain kind of relevance and that it could even play an important role in the U.S. presidential elections next year.”
One key figure in at least some of the stream of visitors is Joseph Mifsud, the mysterious Maltese professor and influence peddler whose name appeared more than 60 times in the Mueller Report on Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential vote. Special counsel Robert Mueller reported that Mr. Mifsud met in 2016 with former Trump adviser George Papadopoulos in Rome, letting Mr. Papadopoulos know of reports that Russia had damaging information on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
The fateful meeting took place at Link Campus University, a small for-profit college in Rome that was once the Italian branch of the University of Malta.
Mr. Trump’s allies insist Mr. Mifsud’s role was mischaracterized in the Mueller Report and that he is actually an intelligence asset employed by other foreign interests, the Obama administration and the intelligence services to smear Mr. Trump and undermine his candidacy. In one version of the conspiracy, Mr. Mifsud was in fact an Italian intelligence agent used by the CIA and FBI in their campaign against then-candidate Donald Trump, a version that Mr. Papadopoulos has said he suspects is true.
“That’s why Barr came to Rome twice, why Durham came to Rome: to look for corroborating information regarding Mifsud’s role in the 2016 election,” said Massimo Basile, an Italian researcher and journalist who has closely followed developments related to the Mifsud case.