Italian PM Sinks Barr’s Globetrotting Mission To Dig Up Dirt

US Attorney General William Barr arrives to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on "The Justice Department's Investigation of Russian Interference with the 2016 Presidential Election" on Capitol Hill in Was... US Attorney General William Barr arrives to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on "The Justice Department's Investigation of Russian Interference with the 2016 Presidential Election" on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on May 1,2019. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN / AFP) (Photo credit should read MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images) MORE LESS
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte punctured Attorney General Bill Barr’s global dirt-digging mission, reportedly telling him that Italy did not play a role in the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation.

Conte told reporters in Rome on Wednesday that his intelligence agencies had told Barr “that our intelligence is unrelated to the affair.”

“Our intelligence is completely unrelated to the so-called Russiagate and that has been made clear,” he also said.

Barr met with Italian intelligence officials in Rome twice in recent months – once on Aug. 15, and another time on Sept. 27.

He traveled there as part of an investigation being conducted by U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut John Durham into the origins of the Russia probe. The Italian thread of the investigation appears to be based on self-serving speculation from Trump campaign coffee boy George Papadopoulos, who has claimed that he was entrapped by unnamed Western intelligence agencies.

Papadopoulos – a foreign policy buff – made his name in 2016 by hearing from Maltese professor Josef Mifsud that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton, before promptly (and drunkenly) telling Australia’s top diplomat to the U.K. about the revelation. That information made its way to the FBI, and Papadopoulos has come to allege that Mifsud was, in fact, a Western plant.

Conte told reporters that the first, August meeting “was meant to decide the extent of the collaboration,” but that his government told Barr in September “that our intelligence is unrelated to the affair.”

“This extraneousness has been acknowledged,” he added. Conte also told reporters that Barr had asked Rome to “verify the operations of American agents.”

“His question was to verify what the American intelligence did,” Conte reportedly added, while saying that “the meetings were fully legal, correct and didn’t remotely harm our national interests.”

Conte went on to suggest that he felt some pressure in acceding to Barr’s requests for meetings.

“If we had refused to sit around a table we would have damaged our intelligence operations and it would have been serious disloyalty and discourtesy to our historic allies,” he said.

Latest Muckraker

Notable Replies

  1. 25% Tariffs on Spaghetti and Parmesan…

  2. Oops! FUBarr’d again…

    The oranges! :tangerine: The oranges! :tangerine:

  3. Avatar for danf danf says:

    “If we had refused to sit around a table we would have damaged our intelligence operations and it would have been serious disloyalty and discourtesy to our historic allies,” he said.

    That’s diplomat speak for, “Can you fucking believe these clowns trying to shake us down?”

  4. Avatar for danf danf says:

    Not gonna lie … that would hurt me.

  5. Avatar for ghost ghost says:

    The Italians are pissed. Now we need the Brits, Aussies, and Kiwis to do the same. And throw in the French and Germans just for good measure. And, what the hell, the Portuguese and Spanish too.

    And then Trudeau needs to taunt Trump with his election victory just for the fun of it.

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

234 more replies

Participants

Avatar for xpurg8d Avatar for ghost Avatar for eggrollian Avatar for cervantes Avatar for krusher Avatar for steviedee111 Avatar for george_spiggott Avatar for rollinnolan Avatar for dont Avatar for psudawnc Avatar for ralph_vonholst Avatar for sanni Avatar for esva Avatar for leftcoaster Avatar for gailefranz Avatar for tena Avatar for daulphin Avatar for tsp Avatar for castor_troy Avatar for khyber900 Avatar for magari Avatar for greysea Avatar for skeptical Avatar for mtw

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: