Réka Szemerkényi, Hungary's ambassador—who met Page at the RNC, then in Budapest—was with Joseph E. Schmitz at an event a month before Trump announced his run.
Schmitz—like Page, a member of Trump's NatSec team—also went to Hungary during the campaign. americanhungarianfederation.org/news_AHF_Hunga…
Schmitz—like Page, a member of Trump's NatSec team—also went to Hungary during the campaign. americanhungarianfederation.org/news_AHF_Hunga…
2/ Just before the election, Schmitz—a Trump NatSec advisor—amplified in his Newsmax column a call by a Polish official for Trump to (if he won) lay off Poland and Hungary as to their immigration policies. Seems this is something Hungary wanted from Trump. newsmax.com/JosephESchmitz…
3/ A year before Trump announced his run, Joseph E. Schmitz spearhanded a secret plot to use 70,000 Russian military weapons to arm Syrian rebels; the CIA had to intervene directly to put a stop to it. Within 18 months, Schmitz was on Trump's NatSec team. wsj.com/articles/priva…
4/ Schmitz, who was Blackwater's COO for a time, told U.S. officials that Erik PRINCE—the Blackwater founder who became a Trump "shadow advisor" and spread Russian propaganda on Clinton in Breitbart just before the election—was willing to help out on a Russian arms-to-Syria deal.
5/ Joseph E. Schmitz, the Trump NatSec advisor who secretly traveled to Hungary (the European HQ for Russian intelligence) during the 2016 presidential campaign, has also been accused of being a Holocaust denier by his former government peers. thedailybeast.com/trump-adviser-…
6/ Here's Jeremy Scahill of The Intercept, discussing Joseph E. Schmitz on Democracy Now back in March of 2015 (one asks oneself, reading this, why Schmitz would be one of the very first people Trump brought onto his NatSec team, along with George Papadopoulos and Carter Page):
7/ Given Schmitz's ties to Erik Prince, and Prince's apparent later involvement in covert foreign operations related to the Trump campaign, it's hard not to see Schmitz (a top Prince ally) as the "shadow advisor" Prince's pipeline to Trump—and vice versa—during the 2016 campaign.
8/ Not sure why Prince hasn't been before Congress or a grand jury. He's a Trump advisor who spread Russian propaganda on the campaign; was part of the plot to get the FBI to reopen the Clinton case; did covert ops abroad for Trump; and is connected to the NatSec team's Schmitz.
9/ Prince is a likely explanation for how Schmitz came into Trump's orbit; another is the Center for Security Policy (designated an anti-Muslim hate group by the SPLC). Trump NatSec team member Walid Phares has been connected to the CSP, and Joe Schmitz was a Senior Fellow there.
10/ I suppose it goes without saying that Jeremy Scahill's explosive claim that Joseph E. Schmitz is a "radical Christian supremacist 'neo-crusader'" is bolstered by Schmitz's documented issues with Muslims *and* Jews—as documented in the tweets in this thread preceding this one.
11/ One might think Schmitz's anti-Semitism is irrelevant to his activity in Hungary; it may not be. Both anti-Semitic Republicans and the Orbán government in Hungary are obsessed with the idea that Hungarian Jew George Soros is secretly running the world. ft.com/content/e38883…
12/ You have to understand that what's happening between Soros and the Hungarian government right now is flat-out *bonkers*—and any anti-Semitic, Soros-conspiracy-theorist in the GOP would have in-roads with Orbán even *outside* any connection with Trump. cnbc.com/2017/11/20/geo…
13/ While Russia is a more likely nexus-point between Schmitz and Page—given that Page met with at least one Russian in Budapest, and his NatSec-team peer Schmitz also secretly went there—Schmitz's anti-Semitism would've played well in establishing relationships with Orbán aides.
14/ And as the FT piece already linked to in this thread demonstrates, the very same Hungarian migration issue Schmitz amplified just before the U.S. election (see this thread) is the *reason* Hungary's government is going after Soros. So these things *are* quite clearly related.
15/ So if Trump, Page, and Schmitz wanted the Orbán government's help—as a key Putin ally—to set up meetings with Russian intelligence in a "neutral city" (cf. Papadopoulos) that's also Russian intel's European HQ, they'd have offered policy support on the Muslim migration front.
16/ As a member of the CSP (an anti-Muslim hate group) and a noted anti-Semite (cf. the Soros Affair in Hungary), Joseph E. Schmitz would have been the *perfect* ambassador from Trump to the Orbán government. The question is, what did Trump want in return from (Putin ally) Orbán?
17/ The Papadopoulos emails are telling us much more than the media currently realizes. Papadopoulos was trying to set up a meeting in a "neutral city" between Trump officials and the Kremlin. The two *top* prospects were Russia's two *top* allies in Europe: Budapest and Athens.
18/ There is ample evidence that Trump-Russia contacts were made during the campaign in those two cities: Papadopoulos in Athens (he met with Putin ally Kammenos the same week Putin was in Athens); Page (and possibly Schmitz also) in Budapest—as he admits meeting a Russian there.
19/ This would track with how Team Trump handled Russia contacts. They always found a pretext: the RNC in July 2016; Sessions' office (an "Armed Services Committee-related meeting"); an "already planned" Page trip to Moscow; "transition meetings"; and so on. "Neutral cities" fit.
20/ Papadopoulos, Gordon, Page, Schmitz, and other NatSec team members could credibly travel to EU nations with ties to Russia because these same nations were (not at all coincidentally) largely supportive of Trump during the campaign. But they could also assist in setting meets.
21/ When Papadopoulos said the Russians were "more comfortable" speaking in "neutral cities," it implied that the Trump campaign couldn't get the same mileage speaking with Russians at the RNC, the Mayflower Hotel, or Sessions' office as abroad. So the foreign contacts are *key*.
22/ So this is a good time to note the obvious: the entire Trump NatSec team was a sham. The two most important and active members—Flynn and Gordon—were never named to it. And anyone named to it after the first five (which included Page, Papadopoulos, and Schmitz) didn't matter.
23/ The team ended up having 14 people on it, but the only ones who seem to have *done* anything—and the ones *not* let go when the team was summarily disbanded in July 2016—were the ones never named to it, named to it first, or who "led" it with plausible deniability (Sessions).
24/ Sessions can call his NatSec team "ineffective" because he claims to have not been involved in any of its email threads and it disbanded in July 2016. But the *real* Trump NatSec team *never* disbanded—Sessions, Flynn, Gordon, Page, Papadopoulos, Schmitz, Phares, and Kellogg.
25/ Kellogg and Phares may've been peripheral, but (a) Phares aided with the GOP platform change and was the only actual NatSec expert on the team, (b) Kellogg was Flynn's replacement when he was fired. So they had roles. The eight other NatSec team members were window-dressing.
PS/ The *one* possible exception to the "window-dressing" observation above is Kubic. On a related note, the number of top Trump aides or advisors experienced in cutting secret deals (often with foreign nations) is staggering: Manafort, Flynn, Schmitz, Prince, Kubic, McFarlane...
PS2/ Note: the NatSec team had two honorary members—who were brought into deliberations at key points even as *Sessions* was claiming to be in the dark. Those two men? Clovis and Manafort. So—Sessions, Flynn, Gordon, Page, Papadopoulos, Schmitz, Phares, Kellogg, Clovis, Manafort.
SOURCE/ The claim that key Trump-Russia meetings took place in Europe is bolstered by intelligence saying so from intel agencies in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Australia, Poland, and Estonia. (That doesn't mean the meetings were in those countries.) theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/a…
SOURCE2/ The Dossier says at least one Trump-Russia meeting was moved from Moscow to "what was considered an operationally 'soft' EU country when [a Moscow meet] was judged too compromising." Greece and Hungary are "operationally soft" for Russia because of compliant governments.
NOTE/ In a July '16 The Times (UK) piece, "NATO Allies Shudder at Warning They Cannot Count on U.S. Riding to the Rescue," Schmitz seems to talk migration and Hungary—right around the time the Hungarian ambassador was at the RNC. Website problems are keeping me from accessing it.
NOTE2/ This thread includes—as additional and critical context on Schmitz—a second thread I recently did about him (click below to read):
NOTE3/ Joseph E. Schmitz's history of going after Clinton is... well, borderline insane. He also—in addition to everything else mentioned here—represented Aurelia Fedenisn, who said Clinton's State Department "stymied diplomatic security investigations." washingtonexaminer.com/hillarys-offic…
NOTE4/ Schmitz also represented Phil Haney—again, as with other Clinton critics, pro bono—who alleged that Clinton's State Department blocked investigation into the Orlando shooter's mosque. Schmitz just couldn't stop representing Clinton critics pro bono. politifact.com/truth-o-meter/…
NOTE5/ It's important to understand that Schmitz continued to make courtroom and media appearances for people who'd fraudulently attacked Clinton even *after* he was no longer representing them—and indeed this is *a lot* of what he did while on Trump's "national security" team.
NOTE6/ So Schmitz did two things on Trump's NatSec team:
1) Advocated for those fraudulently attacking Clinton.
2) Spoke favorably of Hungary's controversial immigration policy.
Then—when Russia wanted to get fraudulent info on Clinton to Trump—Schmitz secretly went to Hungary.
1) Advocated for those fraudulently attacking Clinton.
2) Spoke favorably of Hungary's controversial immigration policy.
Then—when Russia wanted to get fraudulent info on Clinton to Trump—Schmitz secretly went to Hungary.
NOTE7/ A few months later, Schmitz's close business associate, Erik Prince, shows up just before the election in Breitbart—both online and radio—spreading wildly false stories about Hillary Clinton's emails (which Russia said it had) that he *claimed* he'd gotten from NYPD. Hmmm.
