Down the rabbit hole with all the president's men: Barr and Pompeo go hunting

Down the rabbit hole with all the president's men: Barr and Pompeo go hunting

Bill Barr and Mike Pompeo went to Rome looking for conspiracy fodder. They might have dug up more than they wanted

LUCIAN K. TRUSCOTT IV at Salon

https://www.salon.com/2019/10/05/down-the-rabbit-hole-with-all-the-presidents-men-barr-and-pompeo-go-hunting/

"SNIP....

Papadopoulos himself joined the dance of the seven veils of conspiracy buffs last week when he tweeted, “Mifsud was an Italian operative handled by the CIA. Italy holds the keys to the kingdom. Right government. Right time.”

Attorney General Barr was at that moment in Rome “to meet with Italian intelligence officers as part of President Trump’s efforts to discredit the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 United States election,” according to a report in The New York Times, published under the headline, “First Barr, now Pompeo: Italy is hub of impeachment inquiry for Trump officials.” 

The Daily Beast reported this week that Barr showed up at the American embassy in Rome asking for two things: a secure room where he could meet with high-level officials from Italian intelligence, and an extra chair for U.S. Attorney John Durham, whom Barr had appointed to investigate the origins of the Mueller investigation. 

The Italian justice ministry’s public records show that Mifsud had applied for police protection in Italy after disappearing from Link University, where he worked and, in doing so, had given a taped deposition to explain just why people might want to harm him. A source in the Italian Ministry of Justice, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told The Daily Beast that Barr and Durham were played the tape.

....SNIP"