by Ashton Gray

The news and the truth are not the same thing.
—Walter Lippman

There are no accidents in politics.
—Joseph Kennedy

On or about Tuesday, 1 March 2016, CIA Director John Brennan flew to Moscow. He went to the offices of the Russian equivalent to the CIA, the Federal Security Service (FSB)—successor to the KGB—and he went “somewhere else” (yes, that’s exactly what Russia’s foreign ministry said about it). He did not to go to the foreign ministry.

There’s no point in trotting out and mulling over here the lies told about what Brennan went there for—chaff about Syria—because a) they are absurd on their face, and b) anything the CIA ever claims to have been doing, if it isn’t independently verifiable, is a lie. Always. Invariably. Some commentators have put Brennan’s trip to Russia later in March, such as at 14 March 2016, but that is based on pure speculation—chasing the White Rabbit of the claimed “reason” for the trip—and the only attested statement is that it was in “early March,” not mid-March or later. It either was before 3 March, when he verifiably was in New York, or it was between 3 March and 7 March, when he verifiably was back in DC.

JOSEPH MIFSUD, left, a “ghostly” academic with known ties to British intelligence—and therefore to CIA. GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS, right, a nobody manipulated as a useful tool to plant in the Trump campaign.

At almost the exact same time, in “late February or early March,” a world-class nobody living in London named George Papadopoulos somehow got his resumé pumped full of hot fluff by somehow becoming listed as a member of the London Centre of International Law Practice (LCILP). Another man listed with LCILP was a Maltese professor named Joseph Mifsud—a professor with major Russian insider contacts, who soon would loom large in the Papadopoulos legend. (Hat Tip to Jeff Carlson at The Markets Work.) Mifsud, who the UK paper The Independent has characterized as “a ghost,” undoubtedly had Russian ties, but investigative deep digging by Elizabeth Vos has turned up sound evidence that the mystery Maltese professor also had inarguable ties to British intelligence.

It’s a curiosity—only—to note that the London Centre of International Law Practice is about 3.3 miles from the offices of Orbis Business Intelligence Limited, the cover company for an MI6 agent named Christopher Steele. It’s equally curious to note that George Papadopoulos no sooner had secured his resumé decoration with the LCILP than he moved back to the United States, to Chicago, “by March.”

As if someone flipped a switch, at almost the exact same time as John Brennan’s mysterious Moscow trip, an “Open Letter on Donald Trump From GOP National Security Leaders” was published on Wednesday, 2 March 2016, excoriating Trump on his foreign policy—or lack thereof. Immediately, the same day, the CIA’s favorite Operation Mockingbird mouthpiece, The Washington Post, leapt on it with one of its checkout-line headlines: “Trump Is ‘Fundamentally Dishonest,’ Say GOP National Security Leaders In Open Letter.” The message started getting pounded home in press everywhere that Trump was only being “informally advised” on foreign policy.

Within days of John Brennan’s mysterious Moscow trip, by Sunday, 6 March 2016, that world-class nobody named George Papadopoulos was somehow suddenly elevated from total obscurity into a position of “foreign policy adviser” to the Trump campaign, and purportedly was told by some unnamed “Campaign Supervisor” on that day—a Sunday—that “a principal foreign policy focus of the Campaign was an improved U.S. relationship with Russia.”

Within days of John Brennan’s mysterious Moscow trip, by Sunday, 6 March 2016, that world-class nobody named George Papadopoulos was somehow suddenly elevated from total obscurity into a position of “foreign policy adviser” to the Trump campaign

If you think even one word of this is being made up, better check the source links provided in this article, strap in, and hold on tight to the restraining bar, because this carnival ride is only barely beginning to pick up speed: At almost the exact same time, in “early March” 2016, Glenn Simpson contacted the law firm Perkins Coie, which was representing Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the DNC, about doing opposition research on Donald Trump. Perkins Coie is notoriously connected to the CIA through “former” government-agency lawyers at the firm with top-secret security clearances (stay tuned).

Then, the very next day after Papadopoulous became connected with the Trump campaign, on Monday, 7 March 2016, Glenn Simpson and Fusion GPS received $102,064.30 from another CIA/Deep-State-connected law firm, Baker Hostetler—a hothouse spook farm internationally rampant in the defense and national security sectors. Simpson was being paid (ostensibly) for research on behalf of Russian company Prevazon and its Russian owner, Denis Katsyv—who was being represented by a Russian lawyer named Natalia Veselnitskaya. You know, in Russia—where John Brennan just visited Russian intelligence.

But two days later, on Wednesday, 9 March 2016—quelle horreur ! NSA Director Mike Rogers discovered rampant illegal abuse of FISA 702 inquiries on US citizens! Oversight personnel conducting a minimization review at the FBI had learned that the FBI had disclosed raw FISA information, including Section 702-acquired information, to certain “private contractors.” Private contractors like, oh, for instance, Glenn Simpson and Fusion GPS—or maybe even private contractors who were part of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board (PIAB), whose members can come from the political, academic, or private sectors and “may not be full-time Federal government employees.” (Oh, definitely stay tuned.) The contractors “had access to raw FISA information that went well beyond what was necessary to respond to the FBI’s requests.”

Then, in a lightning-strike flash of coincidence (well, if you’re an idiot you’ll believe it’s coincidence), exactly one week after Glenn Simpson received his over-$100k windfall, on Monday, 14 March 2016, the professional nobody George Papadopoulos just happened to be in Italy (nobody knows or says why he would be in Italy), and just happened to meet there a certain Maltese professor named Joseph Mifsud—for the very first time! (Doncha’ know.) Why Italy? Nobody knows. Nobody says.

It is therefore a curiosity—only—to mention that a prominent FBI agent stationed in Rome, Italy, at the time, one Michael Gaeta, happened to be a good ol’ buddy of Glenn Simpson. Yes, that’s the Glenn Simpson who just received a bucket of big bucks exactly one week before this amazing happenstance meeting of Papadopoulos and Mifsud. Michael Gaeta just happens to be the FBI agent who a few months later will travel to London—with the blessings of the U.S. State Department’s Victoria Nuland—to meet with MI6 operative Christopher Steele and receive a copy of the salacious “Trump Dossier” paid for by Simpson and Fusion GPS with money from the CIA-connected law firm Perkins Coie (and/or money from Baker Hostetler). But that’s getting ahead of the story. Do you need a scorecard yet?”