Drunken bragging sparked FBI’s Trump probe

A “night of heavy drinking” in the Kensington Wine Rooms in London was reportedly the catalyst for the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s inquiries into president Donald Trump’s ties with Russia.

According to a report in the New York Times at the end of December, during a rather drunken evening at the London wine bar in May 2016 one of Trump’s foreign policy aides, George Papadopoulos, let slip that Russia had “political dirt” on Hillary Clinton.

Papadopoulos let slip his indiscretion to Alex Downer, Australia’s High Commissioner to the UK.

What and how much exactly he said is not clear according to the NYT but when hacked emails from the Democratic party began to be leaked online in the run-up to the US election the Australian intelligence officers passed the information on to their US counterparts, sparking the investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties with Russia.

Papadopoulos was arrested by the FBI in July 2017 and in October pleaded guilty to making false statements to the Bureau. He is now co-operating with special counsel Robert Mueller in his investigation.

The revelation also damages the claims of Trump and other members of his staff that the only source of evidence for any alleged ties with Russia come from a dossier compiled by a former British agent, Christopher Steele.