I first wrote about members of Trump's NatSec team making secret trips to Hungary way back in April.
In retaliation, a high-ranking member of the team threatened to have me fired, sued, monitored by the FBI, and arrested.
Now, we discover *another* member of that team did this:
In retaliation, a high-ranking member of the team threatened to have me fired, sued, monitored by the FBI, and arrested.
Now, we discover *another* member of that team did this:
2/ It's important to understand that Budapest is the European HQ for Russian intelligence; Page admits to meeting a Russian he won't name in Budapest; at least 3 members of Trump's NatSec team went there in 2016; Hungary's president is a key Putin ally; and this looks *very* bad.
3/ We now know Trump sent NatSec team members to negotiate with foreign governments—Papadopoulos to Greece and the UK, Page to Hungary and Russia—while at home he had his NatSec chief (Sessions) negotiate with Russia and used other NatSec team members to change the GOP platform.
4/ This is the same NatSec team Sessions called "ineffective" as a way to draw attention from it; in fact, it's clear that—despite White House lies on this—the team met often (not once), its members were high-level (not low-level), and they were *very* coordinated and effective.
5/ Never forget: Papadopoulos told the NatSec team that "the Russians feel more comfortable speaking in neutral cities"—i.e., not Moscow or an American city. So suddenly we discover Page met a Russian in Hungary and Papadopoulos met a Putin ally (and possibly Russians) in Greece.
6/ It's been a *seven-month* battle (since April) to get U.S. media to talk about Hungary—those who did got threatened, belittled, and called "conspiracy theorists" by media in the meantime—but the research has always been solid: Trump was up to funny business in Hungary in 2016.
7/ If you put together the activities and emails from Gordon, Papadopoulos, Schmitz, and Page—and emails between Clovis, Manafort, Gates, Kubic, and others about how/when to set up clandestine Team Trump-Kremlin meetings—it sure looks like Hungary was used as a rendezvous-point.
8/ I've also said (via multiple threads) that we have ample evidence that Papadopoulos sought to establish Greece (specifically Athens) as a second rendezvous-point for Team Trump-Kremlin meetings, and now we'll see how many more months it takes for mainstream media to get there.
9/ We know Trump was in contact with Breitbart during the election season via Erik Prince—and others—and Steve Bannon was aiding him from his media perch there. And we know Sebastian Gorka worked for Breitbart, is from Hungary, and got a job with Trump he had no business getting.
10/ So the overlaps between the Trump campaign and a relatively insignificant—from a policy standpoint—European nation that *coincidentally* happens to be the European HQ for Russian intelligence are so *varied, numerous, and extensive* that the chance of "coincidence" vanishes.
11/ I also think it's telling that the first harassment I received from any Trump aide was received over me associating Trump's NatSec team with Hungary—and it was clearly intended as a "brush-back," i.e., "Listen you—don't go there. Don't do it." But I did, and now Big Media is.
12/ To be clear—Gorka's family fled Communist oppression, so despite him calling Budapest his "beloved city," working for Breitbart, and getting a job he had no business getting at a time he hadn't done anything publicly for Trump, who knows if Gorka has anything to do with this.
13/ My point is that Trump and Hungary's president have embraced one another, and Trump's inner circle contained an unusual number of individuals with ties to that nation—which has fewer people in it than *Michigan*. So yes, Congress and Mueller have to look at this very closely.
14/ I *will* say this: Trump hired Sebastian Gorka as a national security "consultant" almost immediately after his campaign began in 2015, and I *would* like to know who made that recommendation (note: Mike Flynn was advising Trump on NatSec at the time). politico.com/blogs/on-media…
15/ So—given his personal history—the likelihood Gorka was a liaison with the Russians is very, very slim; that said, I wonder whether then-candidate Trump hired Gorka as a "consultant" in '15 in any part/to any degree to learn more about Hungary and Putin's intel presence there.
16/ Meanwhile, J.D. Gordon has traveled to Hungary *six times* in recent years—that's a lot, for a country with a population *smaller than Michigan* and virtually *no* geopolitical significance—so I suppose someone somewhere in media should press him a bit hard about those trips.
17/ And as far as we know, *nobody* is asking Joe Schmitz why he went to Hungary during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Everybody forgets, for some reason, that Schmitz was named to Trump's NatSec team the same day as Papadopoulos and Page. He was among the first five named.
Everybody forgets, for some reason, that Schmitz was named to Trump's NatSec team the same day as Papadopoulos and Page. He was among the first five named.
18/ Here's my thread on the Trump campaign and Hungary from April (yes, April) 2017:
