Here follows a brief thread on Professor Joseph Mifsud, "the professor" from the @GeorgePapa19 court documents / Mueller investigation. 1/
Recall that, according to the FBI's affidavit, Papadopoulos had met Mifsud while travelling in Italy in March 2016. When Papadop said he was working with Trump campaign, Mifsud became more interested and claimed he had "substantial connections with Russian government officials". 
Later in March 2016, the Trump campaign announced their foreign policy team, which including Papadopoulos
Papadopoulos, who was living in London at the time, later met Mifsud in London. With Mifsud was Olga Polonskaya "the female Russian national", who was purported to be "Vladimir Putin's niece" (but was not).
Papadopoulous emailed the campaign saying he had met his "good friend" Mifsud, who introduced him to Polonskaya and the Russian ambassador to the UK, Yakovenko. Papadop later learned she was not in fact Putin's niece and had expected to be introduced to the ambo but never was
The stated purpose of the meeting: to arrange a meeting between Donald Trump and Putin to discuss Russia-US ties under a Trump presidency.
In late March, Papadopoulos flew to Washington, where he attended a national security meeting with other campaign members. He told them that he "had connections" that could facilitate a meeting between Putin and Trump.
over the following weeks there were more communications. Papadop emailed the campaign regarding his "outreach to Russia". Polonskaya emailed back to say she supported a meeting. Mifsud flew to Moscow to the Valdai meeting that month.
Papadop was then introduced to Ivan Timofeev (the "Russian MFA connection") to help lay the groundwork for a meeting.
Key bit: On April 26, 2016, Papadop met Mifsud in a London hotel. Mifsud told him that the Russian government had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton, including "thousands of emails".
(The next day, Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, meets Kislyak at a reception at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington before a foreign-policy speech given by candidate Trump)
But the questions around Mifsud - and who he was - during that year, and prior years, are interesting in themselves. I have previously documented who Olga Polonskaya was...
Before Polonskaya scrubbed her Facebook account of pictures, I screengrabbed her profile. This was before she had been publicly identified as the "Putin's niece" character. She was one of Mifsud's friends on Facebook.
This is her. "Places liked" by Polonskaya? The US Consulate in St Petersburg. Greenpeace Italia.
She also had "liked" interactions between another mutual friend of her's and Mifsud's, Prasenjit Kumar. He took a selfie with UK PM Theresa May earlier that summer (he has since deleted these photos) and with UK FS Boris Johnson (with Mifsud) a couple of weeks prior in Oct
This was her FB account before she scrubbed it. However. Mifsud, instead of scrubbing his account, deleted it entirely. But not before I had an opportunity to examine some of his account..
This is where Mifsud, as has been reported by @AlbertoNardelli @jonworth and @johnsweeneyroar among others, becomes a more than interesting character. Here is a screengrab of Mifsud's account, that I took before he deleted. He had 147 friends before he deleted.
What caught my eye was Clive Coombes. At this point I roped in @PeterKGeoghegan to help me out. Who were Mifsud's Facebook friends, and why? I took a closer look at Mr Coombes because of his background... (all this info was obtained via standard open source techniques)
Why was Clive Coombes interesting? Because he was friends with Prof Mifsud, and in late 2016, Mifsud had left this comment on his FB photo. "fantastic car". This is where the story gets.. interesting..
As it turned out, Mifsud had invited Coombes to speak at an event in late 2015. At the now infamous London Academy of Diplomacy (LAD). So who is Clive Coombes OBE and why would Mifsud be interested in him?
According to his LinkedIn, Coombes is ex RAF, ex MOD...
Between 2009 and 2013, he worked at the FCO in multiple roles as a Defence Attaché or advisor in Asia.
Interestingly, between 2006 and 2009, he was according to his LinkedIn, the deputy Chief Executive of the MoD, including being commander of RAF forces outside the UK, deputy commander of the European Support Group, and deputy commander of "British Military Garrison" in Germany
Perhaps also of interest to Mifsud was Coombes' roles in 2003-2004 as UK liaison to the US Joint Chiefs, in support of the GWOT, and his defence diplomacy role in the FCO. Also all the NATO stuff.
Perhaps more worryingly from an opsec point of view, Coombes was also a board mentor and advisor at RAF Coningsby, when he came into into contact with Mifsud. Coningsby forms a core part of the UK’s Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) force, that frequently intercepts Russian bombers.
Earlier in his career Mr Coombes was also an Ops Director at the RAF.
A sidenote: when the the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge visited Singapore in 2012, it was Mr Coombes who gave them the tour
Mr Coombes' bio was laid out in Mifsud's event at the LAD
so @PeterKGeoghegan contacted Mr Coombes and asked him about his relationship with Prof Mifsud. Mr Coombes said that Mifsud was not at the event in late 2015, because he was sick. And that he had spent no more than 15 mins with Mifsud.
Mr Coombes described to @PeterKGeoghegan how he had met Mifsud after the late 2015 event at LAD, during 2016 (likely July).
So what do we see here? Arguably Prof Mifsud was, according to emails obtained by the FBI, working on behalf of Russia. He befriended a former senior MoD/FCO/RAF official at an event, and asked him to speak at LAD. This happened. Why would Mifsud seek to befriend Coombes?
Arguably it looks like the early stages of an intelligence operation. We have no reason to believe that anything went further than what is described above (and Coombes has said that's where the relationship ended). But Mifsud was clearly interested in interesting people..
I asked @john_sipher - formerly of the CIA - what he thought. His view was that Mifsud showed all the characteristics of an "access agent". It is important to qualify: nothing here suggests anything untoward took place on the part of Mr Coombes. Only that Mifsud was interested.
And a further twist. Back late last year, @carolecadwalla reported on a picture I dug up showing @BorisJohnson and Prof Mifsud at an event (Johnson having denied ever having met him). There was another photo from this event too..
It was this one. Posted on Oct 21 by the aforementioned FB friend of "Putin niece" Olga Polonskaya - Prasenjit Kumar. It shows Mr Kumar with Richard Benyon MP at the same event @BorisJohnson attended..
So @RichardBenyonMP was then and is now a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee - the parliamentary committee that oversees UK intelligence, including MI6. Olga Polonskaya - the "Putin niece' from the Papadop story, was friends with Kumar on Facebook.
So TL;DR. Mifsud was not only engaging with @GeorgePapa19. He was clearly befriending other individuals. Mr Kumar - who I have no reason to believe did anything untoward, also had some type of relationship with both Prof Mifsud and Polonskaya. Indeed she liked his updates on FB.
Most of the stuff in this thread is deleted from their respective Facebook accounts, but I believe contains important context for how Prof Mifsud built his network in the UK, who he interacted with, and who is friends - and friends of friends - were.
So who was Prof Mifsud? Well, he had interesting friends in high places in Russia. He made friends with interesting people, and clearly implied a relationship with the Russian ambassador to the UK. He also tried to help setup a meeting between Trump and Putin via Papadop
He also claimed to have dirt on Clinton before knowledge of a hack was widely known. He befriended (or became acquainted with) the former deputy head of the UK Ministry of Defence, who also was an advisor to one of two Typhoon QRA airbases in the UK that intercept Russian bombers
this thread is just another piece in the broader Mifsud/Russia puzzle. @johnsweeneyact1 @albertocairo @jonwood1978 @carolecadwalla @PeterKGeoghegan and others are worth a follow in relation to it. I be just dabbling in my spare time. Cheers folks! /ends.
that should be @AlbertoNardelli ! apols Alberto. Also I think there are mutual FB connections between people in this thread and people you are familiar with.
