Deep State Target: How I Got Caught in the Crosshairs of the Plot to Bring Down President Trump

by George Papadopoulos

One of the bigwigs at the conference is Matthew Bryza, the former US ambassador to energy-rich Azerbaijan.

He wants to let me know I’m pissing people off in both the State Department and the private sector.

The implication is: how dare I show up at a European energy conference! Of course, my vision of Israel and Cyprus working together with Greece completely runs counter to the Obama State Department’s grand plans for the Mediterranean—not to mention Bryza and his Turkish clients. So I’m not totally surprised that he sees me as an adversary. And he’s not alone: He tells me that the State Department has been highly critical of my work.

Also at the meeting is David Kovatch, the US embassy’s director from the Department of Energy. We talk a bit, and he invites me to the embassy to discuss my work and projects. I mention both these meetings because the...

Idris is also the founder of the London Centre of International Law Practice.

The idea of uniting Greece, Cyprus, and Turkey as a buffer to Turkey’s power in the region flew in the face of accepted wisdom—not just for the security wonks at the institute but with the Obama administration that was in power at the time.

Gore—I thought Trump was far more charismatic than Jeb Bush and any of the others pursuing the Republican nomination.

the accidental president.

things. First, he is the most fervently evangelical candidate in the entire field. Second, he is a Republican African-American who had publicly attacked President Barack Obama.

These are God, heartland, and country types.

I realize I’ve grown up in bubbles most of my life. My Chicago bubble, my London bubble, my D.C. bubble. So Ben Carson’s team, they make me aware of a vast segment of America I’d never experienced, and I’m grateful for that.

the LCILP is a strange operation.

I notify Nagi that it is likely I’ll be joining the Trump campaign. Nagi’s warm, “you-are-a-star” attitude toward me immediately shifts. “What are you thinking? Why would you do this?”

Then another London Centre Director, Peter Dovey, drops by. There is no love from Dovey, either; he rips into me: “This is very bad. You should not be working with Trump. He’s a threat to society. He’s a racist. He’s anti-Muslim.”

need.” He tells me he thinks my background in the energy business is interesting. And as we discuss international affairs, Russia comes up—though Clovis has since denied saying that the Trump campaign wanted to improve relations with that nation.

them, a water distribution expert from California named Rebecca Peters, starts quizzing me about my motives for joining Team Trump.

Then Nagi comes by my office again. His attitude has suddenly changed. It’s a night-and-day difference. He starts telling me that there is someone I have to meet, a very important person

a director with the LCILP whom I’ve never laid eyes on. “You have to meet her,” he tells me while we wait. “Her name is Arvinder Sambei. She’s setting up our team at the conference, and she can help arrange the introduction.” She drops by the office for a brief exchange of hellos. I have no idea this frizzy-haired lawyer had prominent positions as senior crown prosecutor and legal adviser to the UK’s Ministry of Defence.

she represented the FBI in English court.

Even though I am still completely mystified by the business model and purpose of the LCILP,

Two years later, when I think about the timing of all this—the sudden focus on Russia right after Sam Clovis had discussed Russia during my interview with him—I wonder if LCILP had recorded the conversation somehow. Or if someone else had and let Nagi know.

Link Campus University—

Its background, as I’ve since discovered, is less august and academic—and a lot more ominous.

Despite the Renaissance vibe, the school was in fact established in 1999 as the Rome branch of the University of Malta and was the first foreign-owned university authorized to operate in Italy. At some point, it severed ties with the mothership and became a privately owned, for-profit institution.

It also became a training ground for spies, according to reports in the Washington ...

training school for Western-allied spies, including CIA, FBI, and MI6. The school offered a master’s degree in intelligence and security until 2016. It also reportedly offered a master’s program in behavioral analysis ...

there is a preponderance of evidence that the school has strong ties to the intelligence community. The university has hosted CIA-sponsored events on campus, including a three-day symposium in 2004, “New Frontiers of Intelligence Analysis,” which was attended by intelligence and law enforcement agencies from nearly thirty countries.

Washington Post scribe David Ignatius, who attended the event, reported that the CIA’s deputy director for intelligence, Jami Miscik, was a featured speaker.

Former UK Joint Intelligence Committee member Claire Smith was photographed at another Link Campus U...

And Andrew Bagley, the future attorney for CrowdStrike—the cybersecurity firm that traced the 2015 hack of the Democratic National C...

session, I’m sitting in a conference room when Nagi Idris approaches. At his side is a well-dressed man in his mid-fifties. “George,” Nagi says. “This is Professor Joseph Mifsud, and you should talk.”

Joseph Mifsud is the man Nagi had planned for me to meet, the man Nagi had asked Arvinder Sambei to contact, and the man Nagi had portrayed as a major player,

THE SLY PITCH

“I’m going to be your middleman around the world. I have contacts everywhere. From the State Department to Parliament to Russia, where I’ve done a lot of work. The Vietnamese president is a good friend of mine, and I should introduce you. I’m very well known.”

I’ve just been told Trump wants to improve relations with Russia. And here is someone—a guy I’m under the impression was a former diplomat in his native country of Malta—offering to open the door. If what Mifsud is saying is true, he’ll boost my own stature with the campaign and help the campaign itself. Or so I thought at the time..

Then Mifsud says: “I’m going introduce you to everyone and set up a meeting between Trump and Putin.” “That’s an excellent idea,” I say. “You really think it can be arranged?” “Oh, yes. I can do it.” “That would be amazing.”

I respond with some possible dates. Then I head to the LCILP offices where I run into Nagi Idris. He’s very excited. He tells me I’m going to meet Putin’s niece.

I’m surprised that he knows more about my future activities than I do.

When I get there, Mifsud is waiting for me in the lobby with an attractive, fashionably dressed young woman with dirty blonde hair at his side. He introduces her as Olga Vinogradova.

One of my London contacts is an Israeli diplomat named Christian Cantor. At the time, his title is political counselor at the Israeli embassy in London.

he tells me the Israeli government is terrified of Trump.

“Is this the same person who I had lunch with at the Grange Holborn Hotel?” She never writes back.

introduces me by email to a man named Ivan Timofeev, who is the program director at the Russian International Affairs Council.

The Russians have “dirt” on Hillary Clinton, he tells me. “Emails of Clinton,” he says. “They have thousands of emails.”

It’s no secret that politics and diplomacy require dancing with partners you may otherwise detest. The enemy of your enemy is your friend, according to the old geopolitical saw.

As for Mifsud’s explosive claim that the Russians had the emails of Trump’s greatest rival for the presidency? I don’t tell a soul. Not yet, anyway.

We went from mistakes in Iraq to Egypt to Libya, to President Obama’s line in the sand in Syria. Each of these actions has helped to throw the region into chaos and gave ISIS the space it needs to grow and prosper. Very bad. It all began with a dangerous idea that we could make Western democracies out of countries that had no experience or interests in becoming a Western democracy. We tore up what institutions they had and then were surprised at what we unleashed. Civil war, religious fanaticism, thousands of Americans killed, lives wasted. Horribly wasted. Many trillions of dollars were lost as a result. The vacuum was created that ISIS would fill.

the speech was one of my most tangible contributions to the campaign. It’s been reported that I “edited” the speech. I actually am the coauthor.

I have hundreds of emails to prove it, too.

call from Christian Cantor,