[Update-1] My analysis on Prof. Mifsud and the bar talk with Trump goon Papadopoulos …

 

The boss, the boyfriend and the FBI: the Italian woman in the eye of the Trump-Russia inquiry | The Guardian |

Simona Mangiante, the girlfriend of ex-Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos, also worked for a mysterious Russia-linked Maltese professor. No wonder Robert Mueller’s investigation came knocking.

Simona Mangiante never expected that a flirtation that began on LinkedIn would lead to a subpoena to appear before federal agents working for Robert Mueller, the US special counsel leading an investigation into Donald Trump and the Kremlin.

But the knock on her door arrived last October, on the day that Mangiante’s boyfriend, George Papadopoulos, a former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. Under the terms of his plea deal, Papadopoulos also agreed to cooperate in the ongoing criminal investigation.

…
Mangiante quit her post there after three months, in November 2016. Mangiante says a colleague of Mifsud‘s promised her a £2,500-a-month salary but paid her nothing. Her official iPhone stopped working.

Mifsud has told the Daily Telegraph he has nothing to do with the Kremlin and denies wrongdoing. “I have a clear conscience,” he said. Still, there are photos of him meeting a succession of Russian dignitaries, including Moscow’s ambassador to the UK, Alexander Yakovenko.

…
Mangiante says she felt compelled to do something after senior Republicans dismissed Papadopoulos as a “coffee boy” who had exaggerated his role.

This is a lie, she says. “He was involved at the highest level. He wrote speeches for Trump. He set up the candidate’s meeting with Egypt’s President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi,” she says.

Of Papadopoulos’s decision to cooperate with the FBI, she says: “He’s put himself on the right side of history. It’s quite brave. He wasn’t obliged to cooperate. He decided to cooperate.”