OPINION:
Former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull mused recently about former President Donald Trump’s purported “awe” of Vladimir Putin, despite the effectiveness of Mr. Trump’s foreign policy. Mr. Turnbull would seem to be ancillary to the election interference that came from the commonwealth in the form of the Russia hoax surrounding the 2016 election (“Trump boxed Putin in, and Biden let him out,” web, Feb. 20).
Notably, former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele — “desperate that Donald Trump not get elected,” according to high-ranking Justice Department official Bruce Ohr — pushed the infamous Steele dossier on Mr. Ohr.
And retired British diplomat Andrew Wood unexpectedly approached Sen. John McCain at a Halifax, Nova Scotia, security conference to make arrangements to get the dossier to McCain.
Then there was former Australian High Commissioner Alexander Downer, who at a London wine bar pressed then-Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos on what the latter knew about Russian dirt on Hillary Clinton. This was after Joseph Mifsud, a professor and honorary director of the London Academy of Diplomacy, merely mentioned the possibility to Mr. Papadopoulos at an unrelated meeting orchestrated by Mr. Mifsud.
The Edward Snowden documents revealed that the Obama administration had paid U.K. intelligence over 100 million British pounds for spy services unencumbered by the U.S. Constitution. And as far back as late 2015, the British are reported to have been sending signals to U.S. intelligence about suspicious “interactions” between people connected to Mr. Trump and purported known or suspected Russian agents. The unjustly maligned Carter Page, however, was in fact a U.S. intelligence asset.
WILLIAM T. FIDURSKI
Clark, New Jersey
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