A curious gathering in London — and the ‘dirt’ that followed
Trump adviser’s contacts with Russia began at meeting with academic, mystery woman
WASHINGTON — At midday March 24, 2016, an improbable group gathered in a London cafe to discuss setting up a meeting between Donald Trump, then a candidate, and President Vladimir Putin of Russia.
There was George Papadopoulos, a 28-year-old from Chicago who just days earlier had been publicly named as a foreign policy adviser to Trump’s campaign. There was Joseph Mifsud, a Maltese academic in his mid-50s who boasted of having high-level contacts in the Russian government.
And, perhaps most mysteriously, there was Olga Polonskaya, a 30-year-old Russian from St. Petersburg. Mifsud introduced her to Papadopoulos as Putin’s niece, according to court papers. Putin has no niece.
The interactions between the three players and a fourth man with contacts inside Russia’s Foreign Ministry have become a central part of the inquiry by the special prosecutor, Robert Mueller, into the Kremlin’s efforts to interfere with the presidential election.
The March 2016 meeting was followed by a breakfast the next month at a London hotel during which Mifsud revealed to Papadopoulos that the Russians had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton in the form of “thousands of emails.” That was months before the theft of a trove of emails from the Democratic National Committee by Russian-sponsored hackers became public.
Mueller’s investigators are seeking to determine who — if anyone — in the Trump campaign Papadopoulos told about the stolen emails.
A growing list
The revelations about Papadopoulos’ activities are part of a series of disclosures in the past two weeks about communications between Trump campaign advisers and Russian officials or intermediaries. Taken together, they show not only that the contacts were more extensive than previously known, but also that senior campaign officials were aware of them.
Last week, Carter Page, another former foreign policy adviser to the campaign, acknowledged to the House Intelligence Committee that he also had a private conversation with a Russian deputy prime minister on a trip to Moscow in July 2016. Page said that he had informed at least four campaign officials about his trip beforehand.
Publicly, Trump and former campaign officials have tried to distance themselves from Papadopoulos. But records and interviews show that in spring 2016, Papadopoulos was welcomed into the thinly staffed campaign as a “surrogate” who could articulate the candidate’s views. He even helped edit a major foreign policy speech that Trump gave in Washington in late April.
The day before he learned about the hacked emails, Papadopoulos emailed Stephen Miller, then a senior policy adviser to the campaign, saying Trump had an “open invitation” from Putin to visit Russia. The day after, he wrote Miller that he had “some interesting messages coming in from Moscow about a trip when the time is right.”
Those emails were described in court papers unsealed Oct. 30 disclosing that Papadopoulos had pleaded guilty to lying about his contacts to the FBI. But the documents did not identify Miller by name, citing only a “senior policy adviser.” Neither he nor his lawyer responded Friday to requests for comment.
Newfound interest
During interviews with Mueller’s investigators, former campaign officials now working at the White House have denied having advance knowledge of the stolen emails, according to an official familiar with those discussions. Miller was among those recently interviewed.
Mifsud’s interest in Papadopoulos began only after Papadopoulos, while living in London, had joined the Trump campaign, according to documents released by Mueller.
Mifsud did not exhibit any special interest or expertise in Russia until 2014, when his academy was beginning to stumble financially. It was at that time that a 24-year-old Russian intern, Natalia Kutepova-Jamrom, turned up in his office with an improbably impressive résumé.
Fluent in Russian, English, German and Chinese, KutepovaJamrom had also worked in the Russian government as a legislative aide and would move on to a Russian state newspaper. Both Mifsud’s lawyer and KutepovaJamrom declined to comment.
Kutepova-Jamrom introduced Mifsud to senior Russian officials, diplomats and scholars. Despite Mifsud’s lack of qualifications, she managed to arrange an invitation for him to join the prestigious Valdai Discussion Club, an elite gathering of Western and Russian academics that meets each year with Putin.
Among Mifsud’s most important new contacts was Ivan Timofeev, a graduate of the elite Moscow State Institute of International Relations and a program director for the Valdai conference. Mifsud would eventually introduce Timofeev to Papadopoulos by email in April 2016, and the two men communicated for months about possible meetings between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.
Timofeev declined to comment on his relationships with Mifsud or Papadopoulos. But in an interview with the online news website Gazeta.ru in August, he acknowledged corresponding with Papadopoulos.