Director of the London Academy of Diplomacy Joseph Mifsud in 2014. (Juan Manuel Herrera/OAS)
LONDON — An academic at a Scottish university confirmed Tuesday he is the “professor” mentioned in the probe over suspected Russian interference in U.S. politics but claimed the allegations are exaggerated.
According to court papers unsealed Monday, George Papadopoulos, a former foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, told federal investigators that a professor in April 2016 promised him “dirt” on Hillary Clinton compiled by Russians, including thousands of emails.
Joseph Mifsud, who joined the faculty of the University of Stirling earlier this year, was not named in the court documents. He confirmed his identity to the Daily Telegraph on Tuesday, stressing that “I have a clear conscience.”
Emails previously described to The Washington Post appeared to suggest the identity of the professor was Mifsud, a native of Malta.
The University of Stirling said in an emailed statement that Mifsud joined its politics department in May this year as a “full-time professorial teaching fellow.”
This undated image posted on his Linkedin profile shows George Papadopoulos posing on a street of London. (AFP/Getty Images)
Mifsud told the Telegraph that he knew nothing about emails containing “dirt” on Clinton, calling the allegations upsetting and “incredible.” He also dismissed the disclosure that he introduced Papadopoulos to a “female Russian national,” calling the allegation a “laughingstock.”
Papadopoulos pleaded guilty this month to lying to federal agents about his outreach to Russia. The disclosures in the court papers describe Papadopoulos making contact with several senior Trump campaign officials about his apparent outreach to the Russian government over a period of months.
Mifsud told the Telegraph that he introduced Papadopoulos to the director of a Russian think tank to help him better grasp Russian foreign policy and that he tried to set up meetings with experts on the European Union.
“We are academics,” Mifsud told the paper. “We work closely with everybody.”
He said that he met Papadopoulos in Italy in March 2016 and then 10 days later in London.
In emails with The Washington Post in August, Mifsud said that he had “absolutely no contact” with the Russian government. “I am an academic, I do not even speak Russian,” he wrote.
He said that Papadopoulos “was introduced to me in a visit to a project in Rome by the London Centre of International Law Practice in which we discussed track two diplomacy with a number of countries, including the Russian Federation. The only link that was offered vis-à-vis Russia was with RIAC” or the Russian International Affairs Council, a Russian think tank.
According to a biography on the London Centre of International Law Practice’s website, which was deleted Sunday, Mifsud “served prominently” in Malta’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and worked as an adviser for Malta’s Ministry of Education.
In tweets Tuesday, President Trump tried to discredit Papadopoulos and downplay indictments unsealed Monday against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his longtime business partner Rick Gates.
The 12-count indictment, which includes tax and money-laundering charges, stemmed from the probe by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III into possible interactions between the Trump campaign and Russia.
“Few people knew the young, low-level volunteer named George, who has already proven to be a liar,” Trump wrote in an apparent reference to Papadopoulos. Trump did not elaborate on the “liar” accusation.
But in an August 2016 interview with The Post editorial board, Trump described Papadopoulos as a member of his advisory team and an “excellent guy.”
Further details about Mifsud’s purported Russian connections over the years were outlined by his former assistant at the London Academy of Diplomacy, Natalia Kutepova-Jamom, who helped set up some initial meetings with Russian academics and others.
Mifsud suggested that he used the early contacts to open doors for higher-level meetings.
Kutepova-Jamom told The Post that Mifsud contacted her late last year to brag about having a “short private meeting” with Russian President Vladimir Putin. But Kutepova-Jamom said she didn’t believe the two met because Mifsud is “a too ‘small-time’ person” to meet with the Russian leader.
She said that she booked her former boss a speaking slot in 2014 at the Sochi meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club to speak on “economic and international cooperation.” It was there, she said, that the professor met the team from the RIAC, including its program director, Ivan Timofeev.
Mifsud’s goal was to build a list of Russian contacts and policy-shapers, Kutepova-Jamom said. Among those Mifsud met were leading Russian academics and Evgeny Baganov of the Moscow Academy of Diplomacy, said Kutepova-Jamom.
“After my basic contacts I provided him such as Ivan [Timofeev], he succeeded in gaining new ones,” she said.
Nabil Ayad, who hired Mifsud as an honorary director at the London Academy of Diplomacy — where Ayad was founder and director — said Mifsud’s expertise was broadly in the area of diplomacy.
“As assistant to the Maltese foreign minister, he traveled to many countries and met many heads of state,” said Ayad, who is now director of the Academy of Diplomacy and International Governance at Loughborough University in London.
“He’s a professional person. He’s very helpful. As far as I know, he has no favor to any country except Malta,” Ayad added. “I know him very well. He’s helpful with students. He’s a professional person.”
Ayad said the London-based academy’s work involved occasional trips to Moscow, including for collaboration with the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Foreign Ministry.
“We tend to deal with governments, so I don’t think he has any special connections or relationships,” Ayad speculated. “If a meeting took place between a Russian official or he introduced someone, it must have been by chance, not by design.”
Online biographies present Mifsud as an authority in the field of international relations and diplomacy across Europe, the United States, Russia, Africa and the Mediterranean region, but his academic work in these areas appears limited. He has published in peer-reviewed journals on Maltese education policies.
Krohn reported from Atlanta. Brian Murphy in Washington and Isaac Stanley-Becker in Oxford, England, contributed to this report.
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