The useful thing about Prof. Joseph Mifsud is that we know he was a Russian spy simply by how he handled George Papadapoulos. We don’t need to question this, although it’d be nice to know his exact arrangement with Russian intelligence. That makes everything about Mifsud more interesting, since we can see how his cover was cultivated and what kinds of contacts he made. We can also assess the Russians’ level of competency in their tradecraft. In general, their work in this case was needlessly sloppy. The most obvious example was introducing Papadapolous to a woman falsely claiming to be Putin’s niece. Most likely, this highly risky move was made to compromise Papadopoulos by introducing the threat of making him look like a fool. But since it was such an easily detectable fraud, it wasn’t sound work on Mifsud’s part. The ruse might have been detected by the Trump campaign and short-circuited Papadopolous’s rise to the top of Trump’s national security team. Perhaps this kind of sloppiness is why Papadopoulos was quickly handed off to a handler in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In any case, there’s a definite lack of professionalism on display, but that’s to be expected when you decide to use eccentrics and weirdos as your agents.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
It’s good of Glenn to come right out and say he doesn’t care about the facts even if Russia was behind it because it distracts from elite failure:
Although I will say I am not a fan of Nick Cohen, at all. Total tool bag in general.
The important thing after all was to stop the bitch.
. . . non-sequiturs ever, right?
I.e., [acknowledge facts every non-traitor American should obviously care about, followed by] “Who the fuck cares about that?”
It is especially revealing the standards he set for Clinton during the election, the standards by which he criticized Obama, and the ones he operates under regarding Trump. He likes to pooh pooh “this Russia stuff” with the idea that liberals just want to make themselves feel better to know it was a foreign agent rather than their own people who elected Trump (no one of any consequence is really arguing this, but no matter). Yet look right here:
Only Democrats have agency. Criticizing the president of the United States — most powerful person on Earth — would be a distraction. Unless it’s a Democrat.
We also can’t criticize Russia because the US is imperialist and “how do you expect them to respond but to be imperialist counters?”
When it works in his favor, he sings a different tune, of course.
Also I’m not sure I totally agree with this. I mean in an abstract sense maybe. But Glenn operated under an assumption that the rest of the media did: Clinton will win. He set everything up for that. He had so many pieces to write about her corruption, her foreign policy failures, her domestic policy failures, and then her election drubbings in 2018. Now his brain is preserved in amber and he doesn’t know how to operate but with the only way he can: it’s all a conspiracy by the Deep State to overthrow the duly elected president.
Their weirdos beat our professionals like a rented mule.
Um not sure who you mean by “the professionals”. Papadapolous, Carter Page, Don Jr., Prince Jared are all clowns, hardly professional campaign people much less espionage pros. If you mean our intelligence community, they warned the President in the middle of the summer but traitor McConnell warned Obama not to interfere in the election campaign. Our IC knew pretty right away what was going on.
I mean the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, the DIA, the dozens of other acronyms, the people who spend something like $60 billion a year, all told, on various intelligence duties and who got played like chumps by Papadopolous, Page, Trump, Kushner, etc.
Oh, they ‘warned’ someone? Is that how they respond to a threat to our democracy? Issue a warning and get punked by Wattles McConnell?
Either they didn’t know what was going on, in which case they’re staggeringly incompetent, or they did know and couldn’t effectively stop it, in which case they’re staggeringly pathetic, or they did know and could’ve stopped it but didn’t, in which case they’re traitors.
You write…regarding our so-called intelligence agencies:
Pinned it!!!
Thank you.
Three times.
Above in this thread are several posts making fun of the Russians’ competence.
Yup twice.
As with all other huge bureaucracies, incompetence and ass-covering rules the roost. On both sides, from top to bottom…assuming of course that there are only two sides. Three? Four? Just other levels of incompetence.
Spy vs. Spy.
Dodgy Dossier compilers vs. Dodgy Dossier deniers.
Giant bureaucratic hirelings vs. other giant bureaucratic hirelings
Allsadder than shit.
RatPubs vs. DemRats?
Same same.
RatPubs and DemRats vs. Trumpists?
Same same cubed!!!
I went out today to do some shopping.
I swear, it looked like alla the Bronx was out celebrating the Gummint shutdown.
All bullshit, alla the time.
Nice.
WTFU.
You’ve been had.
AG
Arthur, I agree that we’ve all been ‘had.’ But one of the Things that’s done mod of the ‘having’ is the Both Sides media and the Both Sides intelligence community. The minor, meagre Both Sides commentariat on the left doesn’t have a loud enough megaphone to ‘have’ anyone, but not for lack of trying.
Bothsider vs. Bothsider.
Corporate media stenographer vs. Trump wrongdoing deniers.
Giant bureaucratic hirelings vs. sophomoric Last Honorable Man
All sadder than shit.
Deep State vs. “Deep State” attacker?
Same same.
I went out the other day to do some marching.
I swear, it looked like alla LA was out engaging in democracy instead of wanking to nihilism.
All bullshit, alla the time.
Nice.
WTFU.
I mean this from the heart, man: You’ve been had. They got their hooks in you. You’ve been spun so hard you landed in the pocket of the Deep State. 8 ball.
“I think he is an idiot and forgot who I am.” The ‘tradecraft’ here is interesting but lamentable:
Good times.
Probably best to put this team into the larger mix. This professor was not a member of the A list. Nor did he need to be.
But there was and is an A list of spies and intelligence operatives that were in play from Russia and they took years and likely decades to put into play. I’m reading Luke Harding’s book ‘Collusion’ and there’s not doubt that the cast of characters were, on the whole, effective.
In any case, there’s a definite lack of professionalism on display, but that’s to be expected when you decide to use eccentrics and weirdos as your agents.
There was a lack of professionalism all over. How did two separate universities not vet Mifsud’s credentials at all before they gave him the positions they did?
I suspect money changed hands.
You mean, like here, “big money donors” facilitated his hiring?