Scott Morrison has told dinner-buddy Donald Trump that Australia will investigate itself to help unravel the origins of the Mueller investigation into Russian election interference. In doing so, the PM has ensured that former high commissioner and Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer will forever be remembered for his role in the scandal.
The conservative, Queen-loving, Liberal politician has been demonised by some in the US as a left-wing minion for his role in kickstarting the inquiry. Downer, while working as high commissioner to the United Kingdom, met for drinks in London with Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos, who reportedly said Russia had damaging material on Hillary Clinton. Downer did what diplomats are supposed to do and forwarded the information on to American and Australian intelligence agencies.
Papadopoulos has launched social media tirades against Downer, calling him a “wannabe spy“. America’s far-right media joined in, trying to discredit Downer as a leftie on the basis that he donated to the Clinton Foundation’s AIDS fund.
But our American allies are confused; it just doesn’t seem likely that Downer would deliberately orchestrate the downfall of a foreign president, less-so one whose policies largely align with his own conservative views. This is the man who, while contending to be prime minister and talking about the Liberal slogan ”The Things That Matter”, joked that his party’s domestic violence policy would be labelled ”Things That Batter”. This is the man so anti-republic that he was appointed as chair of the Royal Over-Seas League, a London-based private membership organisation full of wealthy individuals who love the Queen and Commonwealth just a little bit too much. This is a man who is really, really bad at Twitter.
And yet his legacy, nonsensically, will be that of a small-l liberal stooge. That’s got to sting.
I’m not sure whether I should be outraged that Morrison agreed to Trumps request OR disappointed that there is bound to be nothing more to the story than Downer has already said.
On the upside Morrison is the second Australian PM to out deal the king of the deal by agreeing to look into someing which is simply transparent, and I suppose he did get a bang up State dinner out of the Orange buffon. Still it would be good to imagine some world leader telling Trump to shove it where the sun don’t shine…but then it would have to be Macron or Merkel.
I think the best world leader we have seen for quite some time, young Greta, has already done that very effectively, and openly, and repeatedly with the whole world watching.
We know that will have wounded his delicate ego, but he is way too hateful and full of himself to learn any lessons.
History will not be kind to the Strumpet, or to our Scumbag – although if either have their way history will be short.
People are missing the key point which is that the Russiagate hysteria was confected by the UK to interfere in the 2016 election and then to bring down Trump. Downer is a monarchist, his loyalty is to the UK. That is what you need to understand.
Australia is going to get a lesson in the meaning of sovereignty out of all this. Scoff all you want, it won’t change the outcome
I couldn’t possibly scoff any more than I am.
With respect, BS
“Australia is going to get a lesson in the meaning of sovereignty… “. So, we’re finally going to deal with the land we stole off the original inhabitants and get a treaty organized and signed? Ah, no… you meant something entirely different and absolutely irrelevant. Australia needs a treaty with the original inhabitants and we need to become a republic, voting for our president like a normal democracy. We still could end up with a Trumplike moron as president of Australia, but at least it would be OUR moron president and not some German descended hereditary monarch.
What I’d like to know is how did Papadopoulos get to go to drinkies with Downer? He must have had a good sales pitch. I’d have thought the Aust HC in the Court of St James would be a busy chap, with lots of official functions to attend, and yet Alex found time for drinks with some junior political flunky nobody from America.
As the journos like to say – there are questions needing answers here.
Proclivities
How right you are rabid one.
Agree. I have been wondering about this for a long time. How did this meeting happen? Who organised it? There appears no apparent way these could have met.
Thanks to the internet you can find links to alternative media investigations that may answer some of your questions. The story reminds me of those parlour games where people sit in a circle and whisper a message to their neighbour which by the time it goes full circle comes out hilariously distorted. So our Alexander was in that circle and passed on what he thought he heard from Papadopoulos, though this time it ended at the State Department and passed on to the Clinton campaign who were already looking for anti-Trump dirt. Hopefully Crikey will let this through:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/fbi-trump-russia-investigation-george-papadopoulos/
I suggest doing 2 different searches.
The first; Alexander Downer Richard Dearlove
The second; Richard Dearlove Christopher Steele
Connecting the dots is really not terribly hard.
I also recommend getting hold of a copy of Brian Toohey’s recent released book; “Secret – The Making of Australia’s National Security State”.
Consider it a manual for budding dot connectors.
It’s how this stuff works, with the raft of people willing to sell out Australia’s sovereignty on full display.
The various manifestations of the ‘signals directorate’ being a case in point, as is ASIS and its endless parade of bumbling twats.
And, anyone who thinks the ‘5 eyes’ is a closed network, restricted to 5 nations with ‘democracy and common values’ at their core, has well and truly drunk the most fetid of bathwaters.
Downer, the Minister who demoted DFAT into vassals of junketing politicians, and ASIO into vassals of Woodside Mining in Timor Leste.
Good ol’ Alexander “The Bugger” Downer – if it wasn’t for this he’ll best be remembered for his “AWB amnesia”, or that little turn in East Timor (to benefit a future employer) for Woodside?