Details have emerged that contradict a loaded Sept. 30 New York Times report that claimed President Donald Trump “pressed” Australia’s leader and used “American diplomacy for potential personal gain.”
The New York Times in its intro also editorialized that the conversation between the two leaders was “another instance of the president using American diplomacy for potential personal gain.”
Following the report, a number of details emerged that conflict with the Times’ insinuation that Australia had been “pressed” by Trump to cooperate with Barr.
“The Australian government will use its best endeavours to support your efforts in this matter,“ Hockey wrote. ”While Australia’s former high commissioner to the UK, Alexander Downer, is no longer employed by the Government, we stand ready to provide you with all relevant information to support your inquiries.”
An Australian government spokesperson from the Prime Minister’s office told The Epoch Times on Oct. 1, “The Australian government has always been ready to assist and cooperate with efforts that help shed further light on the matters under investigation.
“The Prime Minister [Scott Morrision] confirmed this readiness once again in conversation with the president,” the spokesperson said, referring to a phone call that was the subject of the New York Times’ report.
DOJ spokeswoman Kerri Kupec confirmed on Sept. 30 that Trump’s call to Morrison was done at the request of Barr for the purposes of the investigation.
“As the Department of Justice has previously announced, a team led by U.S. Attorney John Durham is investigating the origins of the U.S. counterintelligence probe of the Trump 2016 presidential campaign,” Kupec said.
“Mr. Durham is gathering information from numerous sources, including a number of foreign countries. At Attorney General Barr’s request, the president has contacted other countries to ask them to introduce the attorney general and Mr. Durham to appropriate officials.”
Australia’s Alexander Downer
The New York Times said in its report that Trump’s latest request to Morrison was “in effect asking the Australian government to investigate itself.”Downer, in an interview with The Australian newspaper in 2018, claimed that Papadopoulos in May 2016 told him that Russia might use “damaging” material they had on Hillary Clinton in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election. Downer said he was the one to pass that information back to the Australian government “the following day or a day or two.”
According to a diplomatic source quoted by the Wall Street Journal, Downer was also the one to pass on Papadopoulos’s Russia information directly to the U.S. embassy in London.
Downer maintains that his role was simply to pass on what Papadopolous told him.
“I had a conversation with this guy and I passed on one element of the conversation to the Americans. There’s just nothing more to it,” Downer said on Oct. 1, according to AAP. “I know nothing about conversations about that Scott Morrison has had with the Americans, including President Trump, about this.”
Papadopolous on Oct. 1 wrote on Twitter: “First, I testified against both Downer and Mifsud a year ago to help launch Durham’s investigation. Now, the fruit of that accurate testimony is exposing the global nature of the attempt to set up the 2016 campaign and interfere in the democratic process. Was my patriotic duty!”
He also posted a photo of Downer and former Cambridge academic and FBI informant Stefan Halper, with a message that read: “Here is the Clinton errand boy, Alexander Downer, with the walrus, Stefan Halper, a week before both were sent to spy on me. Both are just now going to be exposed for the world to see.”
