Ein Professor steht im Zentrum der Trump-Russland-Untersuchungen - und ist plötzlich verschwunden
Eine Ukrainerin namens Anna sagt, Professor Joseph Mifsud habe ihr in einem Restaurant mit Blick auf den Kreml einen Antrag gemacht. Später soll er der Trump-Kampagne verraten haben, dass Russland in Bezug auf Hillary Clinton „Dreck am Stecken“ habe. Seitdem hat sie nichts mehr von ihm gehört.
Seit Monaten läuft in den USA eine enorme Debatte über die Frage, ob Russland im letzten Präsidentschaftswahlkampf mitgemischt hat. Mittlerweile untersucht ein ehemaliger FBI-Direktor als Sonderermittler die Vorwürfe. Er hat auch das Trump-Team im Visier.
US-Gerichtsunterlagen zufolge ist Josef Mifsud der Mann, der im April 2016 einem Berater von Trump gesagt haben soll, die Russen hätten „Dreck am Stecken“: und zwar in Bezug auf Hillary Clinton. Aber im Gegensatz zu anderen Figuren, die jetzt im Zentrum der Ermittlungen stehen, hat Mifsud - abgesehen von einem Interview mit einer italienischen Zeitung - seine Geschichte nicht selbst selbst erzählt.
Stattdessen ist er einfach weg. Sein Lebenslauf auf der Webseite der Universität Rom, an der er arbeitete: verschwunden. Der Kontakt zu einer anderen Universität in Schottland: abgebrochen. Seine 31-jährige ukrainische Verlobte erhält keine WhatsApp-Nachrichten von ihm mehr, und keine Anrufe.
Jetzt will sie ihn finden und sprach mit BuzzFeed News darüber - und über Details zu einem Mann, dessen Beziehung zu Russland alles andere als klar ist.
Unter den Opportunisten, Spinnern, Trollen und Kämpfern, aus denen die Darsteller jener Geschichte bestehen, in der Russland kräftig in der amerikanischen Politik mitmischt, sticht Joseph Mifsud heraus.
Der Professor aus Malta, der dem Trump-Lager von Hillary Clintons gestohlenen E-Mails erzählt haben soll, ist wirklich eine mysteriöse Figur; seine tatsächliche Rolle und seine Verbindungen zu russischen Geheimdiensten sind weiterhin unklar.
Und während andere - wie die ehemaligen Trump-Kampagnenhelfer George Papadopoulos und Carter Page, ebenso wie deren Freundinnen und Freunde - ihre Geschichten erzählten, ist Mifsud einfach weg. Sein Lebenslauf verschwand von der Webseite einer Universität, an der er lehrte. Er kündigte seinen Job an einer anderen Uni. Seine E-Mails und Handys: einfach tot. Politiker, Kollegen, Journalisten - niemand kann ihn finden.
Genauso wie Anna, seine 31-jährige ukrainische Verlobte, die sagt, er sei der Vater ihres neugeborenen Kindes. Ihre Geschichte wirkt, als ob sie aus einem Roman von John le Carré geklaut wäre. Und doch gibt sie einen Einblick in die Folgen einer Geheimdienstoperation, in der der mysteriöse Mifsud eine zentrale Figur gewesen sein soll.
Anna will aus Sorge vor noch mehr Aufmerksamkeit nur ihren Vornamen öffentlich lesen. Sie sagt, sie sei im siebten Monat schwanger und mit Mifsud verlobt gewesen, als er in den Fokus von Medien weltweit geriet - als der Professor, der Trump-Vertrauten erzählt haben soll, Russland habe in Bezug auf Hillary Clinton "Dreck am Stecken".
„Nie hat er mir geholfen“, sagt sie. „Immer nur reden und Versprechungen“.
BuzzFeed News hat Anna erstmals im Oktober kontaktiert. Damals wollte sie nicht mit der Redaktion sprechen, ihre Beziehung zu Mifsud sei privat, sagte sie. WhatsApp-Nachrichten, die sie uns später zur Verfügung stellte, zeigen, dass sie dem Professor von unserer Anfrage berichtete — und dass der in seiner allerletzten Nachricht Anna sagte, sie solle bitte nicht mit Journalisten sprechen.
Doch inzwischen hat sie ihre Meinung geändert. Sie fühlt sie sich getäuscht. Das Ergebnis sind neue Informationen über Mifsuds Aktivitäten, einschließlich seiner Behauptung, mit Russlands Außenminister Sergej Lawrow gegessen zu haben.
„Er sagte: 'Ich esse heute Abend mit Lawrow. Lawrow ist mein Freund. Lawrow dies, Lawrow das. Er zeigte mir sogar ein Bild mit Lawrow", sagt Anna.
Das russische Außenministerium hat auf unsere Anfrage hierzu nicht geantwortet.
Per WhatsApp schrieb Mifsud Anna im Mai 2017, er sei in Saudi-Arabien - zur gleichen Zeit, als auch Präsident Donald Trump das Land besuchte - und später, er wäre für den G7-Gipfel in Sizilien.
Anna hat BuzzFeed News ihren gesamten WhatsApp-Verlauf mit Mifsud bereitgestellt, mit dem sie nach eigener Aussage verlobt ist. Die Nachrichten geben einen Einblick in ihre Zeit als Paar - bis zu dem Moment, als er den Verlobungsring von ihr zurückforderte. Als die beiden sich im April 2017 das letzte Mal sahen, erzählte er ihr, er sei vom FBI verhört worden.
Im nächsten Monat erfuhr sie, dass sie schwanger war. In den darauffolgenden sieben Monaten bat sie ihn, sie in Kiew zu besuchen. Er bettelte um Zeit und gab vor, krank zu sein. Danach, als US-Sonderermittler Robert Mueller seine Rolle in den Ermittlungen über vermeintliche russische Einflussnahmen in die US-Politik bekanntgemacht hatte, verschwand er plötzlich.
Wir veröffentlichen im folgenden die gesamte Geschichte im englischen Original.
“He never helped me,” she said. “Only talk and promises.”
BuzzFeed News first contacted Anna in October. She refused to talk then, saying her relationship with Mifsud was private. According to WhatsApp messages she later shared, she told the professor about BuzzFeed News’ attempt to speak to her — and in his very last WhatsApp message to Anna, Mifsud asked her not to talk to journalists.
Now, however, feeling deceived, she’s changed her mind. The result is new information about Mifsud’s activities, including his claim of having dined with Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister.
“He said, ‘I have dinner with Lavrov tonight. Lavrov is my friend. Lavrov this, Lavrov that,’” Anna said. “He even show me picture with Lavrov.”
Russia’s Foreign Ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment.
In a series of WhatsApp messages sent in May 2017, Mifsud also told Anna he was in Saudi Arabia at the same time as President Donald Trump’s visit, and in Sicily, Italy, for the G7 Summit.
Mifsud did not respond to repeated requests for comment, which BuzzFeed News made to multiple phone numbers and email accounts, as well as via WhatsApp and Signal. Several of his family members, colleagues, and Facebook friends also did not return requests for comment. Mifsud acknowledged in an interview with Italian newspaper La Repubblica published last November that he met former Trump campaign aide Papadopoulos “three or four times,” and facilitated connections between "official and unofficial sources," but denied any wrongdoing.
Mifsud did not respond to repeated requests for comment, which BuzzFeed News made to multiple phone numbers and email accounts, as well as via WhatsApp and Signal. Several of his family members, colleagues, and Facebook friends also did not return requests for comment. Mifsud acknowledged in an interview with Italian newspaper La Repubblica published last November that he met former Trump campaign aide Papadopoulos “three or four times,” and facilitated connections between "official and unofficial sources," but denied any wrongdoing.
In addition to meeting Anna in Kiev, BuzzFeed News spoke to her multiple times in the past month over Facebook messenger, via WhatsApp, on the telephone, and in a video call.
She provided access to her entire WhatsApp history with Mifsud. She also shared dozens of photos of the couple together, including in Ukraine and Russia. BuzzFeed News has seen many photos of the baby and of Anna during different stages of her pregnancy and at the clinic where she gave birth. Anna also said that she wants to do a DNA test to prove that Mifsud is the father of the baby.
Parts of the conversation with Anna in the Ukrainian capital were in her fractured English, and others took place through an interpreter. Some quotes have been edited for clarity.
Anna told BuzzFeed News that she first met Mifsud about four years ago at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.
He approached her while she was taking a selfie and, using English, offered to take her picture. They spoke for a bit, and he invited her to dinner, she said.
The two met again in Moscow a few months later — and “then he came to Ukraine,” Anna said, “to celebrate my niece’s birthday.”
Over the next three years, Mifsud visited Ukraine about 10 times, Anna said. “He came to celebrate a New Year, birthdays, my sister’s baby. He knew all my family. Something we celebrate, he would come. We had a good relationship,” she said.
In late October 2015, Mifsud proposed to her. Anna says they were at a restaurant overlooking the Kremlin in Moscow celebrating Anna’s sister’s birthday. The Maltese academic asked Anna to marry him at the restaurant, and gave her a ring.
“We had a plan to live in Rome. We spoke about this, but only speak,” Anna, who works in marketing, said. “He tell me, I want a baby with you, I want a family with you.”
When the couple split up for a few months in 2016, Mifsud sent her an email asking her to return the ring and handbags, one of which was a Chanel handbag that Mifsud had bought for her during a visit to Rome in spring 2015. In the Italian capital, they stayed in a hotel where “people came to see him all the time,” Anna said.
According to Anna’s WhatsApp messages, he often shared news of his activities, sending Anna links to his interviews and photos from events he was speaking at, and telling her about his work as a professor at the now-closed London Academy of Diplomacy.
But he also had a secretive side. According to Anna, he asked her to delete photos from Facebook where she could be seen drinking, after she uploaded one holding a cocktail. “He said, ‘because I am important man.’” He also demanded she unfriend anyone she hadn’t met in person.
Over the course of what Anna describes as an on-and-off relationship spanning three years, the couple saw each other in Rome, Moscow, and Kiev. But unlike in Rome and Moscow, where Mifsud frequently received visitors, Mifsud didn’t use his trips to Ukraine to network. “He didn’t meet people in Kiev. ‘Russia-Ukraine relationship not good, and I do a lot of work in Moscow,’” Anna recalled Mifsud saying.
Anna said she and Mifsud last met in person in Kiev in early April 2017. He told her then that he had recently been questioned by the FBI in the US, she said.
“He told me he was in his hotel room when he was called downstairs by reception. It was the FBI. He said they wanted to talk about connections he set up between people in Britain and Russia.”
“He said his phone was probably being checked,” Anna added.
In mid-May, about a month after Mifsud left Kiev, Anna found out she was pregnant. And six weeks ago she gave birth to a baby girl.
After finding out that she was pregnant, according to WhatsApp messages seen by BuzzFeed News, Mifsud repeatedly told Anna he really wanted to see her and promised to visit her soon, but he never did, often making excuses or citing health reasons.
“For 7 months, 'I come, I come,'” Anna said. “He never helped me. Only talk and promises.”
Mifsud at first expressed “shock” at the news of Anna’s pregnancy. He asked if she slept with anyone during a recent work trip she’d made to Denmark and Norway, and whether she wanted to keep the baby.
But in later messages, he put his initial reaction down to being surprised and told Anna that he was “super excited” and that the “child will have great parents.”
In messages sent in late September, Mifsud wrote, “You will be the most beautiful mummy … I cannot stop thinking of you.” In another message, he wrote, “I am so proud of youuuuu I think we need to get a nanny to help you.”
But there were also signs that Mifsud was not as enthusiastic as he portrayed himself, and the tone of their messages changed in the final months of her pregnancy. The professor stopped answering the phone and would reply only to Anna’s WhatsApp messages, saying he was ill with heart problems or in the hospital, but promising to fly to her as soon as he was given the green light.
In one message, Anna accused Mifsud of backtracking on a promise to help her. He replied by saying he couldn’t recall any promises, and that he continued to be ill. And, apparently casting doubt on the child’s paternity, he wrote that once he was well again, they would do the DNA test that Anna had been asking for.
In late October, he told her in a message that he was “fighting to live.”
Just days later, on Nov. 1, one day after Papadopoulos’s guilty plea was unsealed in Washington, La Repubblica published an interview with him at the Rome university where he was working, in which he acknowledged being the unnamed professor referenced in the court documents in which investigators allege that Mifsud told Papadopoulos that the Russians had dirt on Clinton. The journalist who did the interview said in an email that it had taken place the previous day.
When Mifsud’s name was thrust upon the world stage, the WhatsApp messages stopped.
Anna says that she was surprised by the news of the allegations. “I really believed he was sick,” she said.
“I am angry with myself. I did not see what he really is!” Anna wrote in a Facebook message last month. “Joseph only promised me...many promises.”
In what was one of Mifsud’s last messages to her, the 57-year-old professor wrote — after she reminded him that the baby was due soon and that they hadn’t seen one another in months — that either she give him time to recover or their paths would go different ways.
“We still need to speak face to face,” he said, apparently referencing the baby. “We never did.”
Mifsud remains one of the mysteries in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election and possible Trump campaign collusion. According to court documents, Mifsud told Papadopoulos that the Russians had thousands of emails from Democrats in April 2016, two months before the Democrats themselves were aware that their computer system had been hacked. Mifsud told Papadopoulos he’d learned of the emails during a trip to Russia, but who told him is unknown.
Papadopoulos is reported to have later shared the information with the Australian high commissioner to the United Kingdom, whose government passed the information to US authorities after WikiLeaks began publishing the emails in July 2016. That information sparked the FBI to launch the investigation that Mueller now leads.
Exactly how Mifsud and Papadopoulos met also is not publicly known, though Papadopoulos is cooperating with the Mueller probe. Mifsud allegedly showed little interest in Papadopoulos until he learned that Papadopoulos had been named to Trump’s campaign.
Mifsud’s professional ventures before the Papadopoulos guilty plea are also in dispute. Papadopoulos’s fiancé, Simona Mangiante, whom Mifsud hired in 2016 to work at the grand-sounding London Centre of International Law Practice, another UK-based organization where the Maltese academic held a senior position, told BuzzFeed News that she never understood what the organization did.
“I never understood if it was a facade for something else,” she said when reached by phone in January. “It wasn’t a serious thing. For starters, I never understood what I was doing there, and they never paid me for three months, so I just said ‘OK, enough.’”
The center did not respond to a request for comment.
Asked for her thoughts on Mifsud, Mangiante said, “My impression [is that] he was not a transparent person and I never understood what he was really doing.”
Mykhailyna Skoryk contributed additional reporting to this story.
Dieser Artikel erschien zuerst auf Englisch.